Astrobotic Uses GPU Technology for Moon Mission

At NVIDIA's GTC 2015 Conference, attendees were able to see the many ways that GPUs (graphics processing units) are ushering in a new level of computing and technology. The applications ranged from medical to virtual reality and aerospace. One company in particular, is using GPUs to deliver more affordable payloads to the moon.

Astrobotic, a company in Pittsburgh, is part of Google's Lunar XPRIZE competition. The goal of the competition is to land a robot on the moon, move the robot 500 meters and send back HDTV video.

According to NVIDIA, the company is using GPUs to effectively model the robot's journey to the moon, as well as the system's movements and pressure during launch. It is also offering a delivery service for companies and organizations that want items sent to the moon.

“As far as we know, we’re the only company that has a configure-your-lunar-mission website,” says Kevin Peterson, chief technical officer at Astrobotic.“We want to go to more interesting places in the solar system than have been accessed in the past. Computation is the key to unlocking those locations.”

For more information, visit Astrobotic and NVIDIA.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.