US Patent Issued to Trans Astronautica on Sept. 8 for "Deployable lunar landing pads for space mining applications" (California, Arizona Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,729,019, issued on Sept. 8, was assigned to Trans Astronautica Corp. (Lake View Terrace, Calif.).

"Deployable lunar landing pads for space mining applications" was invented by Joel C. Sercel (Lake View Terrace, Calif.) and James G. Small (Sonoita, Ariz.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A landing pad for deployment on a celestial body includes a deployable surface configured to be stored in a stowed configuration on a spacecraft and be deployed into a deployed configuration on a surface of the celestial body, a landing system configured to land the landing pad on the surface of the celestial body, and a control system configured to control ...