Once known for its small thermal sports cars, light and pleasant to drive (300 Atlantique, 400 GT…), Venturi has since then specialized entirely in electrical performance. there Fetish was launched in 2006 was the first electric sports car in the world! Two years before the famous Tesla Roadster! Since then, the group has been developing vehicles, mobility solutions and electrical technologies that span multiple fields. Thus, he participates in a space project that aims to development of an electric rover for extraterrestrial missions. This subsidiary of Venturi, called Astrolab, has a team made up of former engineers, including from NASA and SpaceX. It just announced the deployment of its FLEX rover in 2026 as part of a lunar mission…

FLEX, a partnership between Venturi and SpaceX

Started in 2019 research and development of FLEX (for Flexible logistics and intelligence) is the result of a collaboration between the Monegasque group and American company SpaceX. This last (was headed by the famous Elon Musk) will be responsible for its transportation to the Moon. The rocket will be launched using the Starship Super Launcher.

“With this agreement between Venturi Astrolab and SpaceX, we are taking a decisive step as we enter the phase of specification and qualification of our space technologies: the Venturi Astrolab rover will indeed be on the moon in three years. Together, with passion and determination, we will overcome the remaining technological challenges as we prepare for launch in 2026.”
Antonio Delfino, director and co-founder of Venturi Lab and member of the Venturi Astrolab Advisory Board

Ambitious characteristics

After laying, FLEX will conduct scientific and commercial missions and experiments. To meet the extreme conditions of such a journey, the specifications during its development were extremely restrictive. Therefore, he must be able to:

• be reliable in the very long term
• Support temperature from -90°C to -230°C
• To resist writing off
• Act fifteen days in a row in darkness everything
• Move in the way semi-autonomous
• Led cosmonauts
• be with remote control from the future lunar orbital station, as well as from Earth

The goal is 2026

Good bet for Venturi, which is improvingnow its a toy before the long awaited launchin 2026. Founder and CEO of Venturi Astrolab, Jareth Matthewsgreeted this: “We have created much more than a rover designed for use on the moon or Mars. FLEX is a logistics system capable of handling a wide variety of cargo. We believe that this approach will allow us to create a permanent lunar outpost on the Moon at a lower cost and in a shorter time than expected. We are pleased that this contract with SpaceX allows Venturi Astrolab to demonstrate the benefits of the FLEX rover and its modular payload system.”

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