Astrobotic Technology

Headquartered in Pennsylvania, Astrobotic technology focuses on multi-agent robotic missions and surface autonomy by developing custom designs, sensor systems, and rovers for planetary surface activities. The company is a lunar logistics company, providing end-to-end delivery services for payloads to the moon and owns a 47,000 sqft complex, the largest private facility dedicated to lunar logistics as of June 2022. The complex is used to build and operate its lines of landers, rovers, autonomous spacecraft navigation systems, and other space technologies.

The company has developed two lunar landers; Griffin, its small-class lunar lander (the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo program) and Peregrine, its medium-class lunar lander that was selected to deliver NASA’s water-hunting VIPER rover to the lunar south pole in 2023. The price to lunar orbit on both vehicles is USD 300,000 per kg. The company’s Cuberover, weighing just 4kg, provides affordable mobility for scientific instruments and other payloads to operate on the surface of the moon, while its Polaris Rover can accommodate diverse lunar payloads with distinct mission profiles (lunar regolith digging or water ice harvesting), supporting up to 90 kg of payload mass, travel long distances, and provide direct-to-Earth (DTE) communication. A trip to the moon and all the services of the rovers are included in a USD 4.5 million/KG of payload price. In addition, the company provides products and services for landing, navigation, exploration, robotics, and software.

In January 2023 , United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, successfully launched its Vulcan Centaur rocket carrying Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lunar lander from Cape Canaveral Space Force Center. However, a few hours after the launch, the lunar lander encountered a complication that halted the possibility of a moon landing. Despite the challenging circumstances, Astrobotic reported that it has been able to extract data from nine out of 20 payloads.

In September 2022 , Astrobotic acquired Masten Space System for USD 4.5 million after a federal bankruptcy court authorized the sale of almost all of Masten Space Systems' assets to Astrobotic after it made a stalking horse bid of USD 4.5 million including a SpaceX launch credit worth USD 14 million. Masten's wide range of space technologies, including its vertical take-off and landing (VTVL) rocketry and propulsion test facilities, are included in the deal. In addition to continuing to build the Xogdor rocket (Masten’s newest rocket with supersonic speed), Astrobotic claimed it will continue suborbital flight operations at Masten's facility in Mojave. Astrobotic will also continue to operate Masten’s propulsion test stands.

Key customer and partnerships

The company has partnered with NASA on several occasions and was awarded many contracts by NASA including a USD 199.5 million contract to deliver NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) to the moon’s South Pole in late 2023. The company has also partnered with several institutions such as the Astrobotic and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Space, High-performance, and Resilient Computing (SHREC) to develop new software and hardware technologies for future space applications.