commercial lunar payload services

Intuitive Machines’ spacecraft touched down yesterday on the lunar surface . . . sideways. CEO Steve Altemus confirmed during a press conference Friday that, while it wasn’t a perfect landing, it’s nothing short of a…

Intuitive Machines has landed a spacecraft on the lunar surface, in a historic first for a private company. Flight controllers confirmed the landing at 5:23 p.m. CST, though the exact…

Intuitive Machines’ first mission to the moon is now underway. The company’s Nova-C lander, called Odysseus, lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the early hours of Thursday…

Astrobotic’s lunar lander will be reentering Earth’s atmosphere over a remote part of the South Pacific Ocean tomorrow afternoon, bringing to a close the failed moon landing mission. The Peregrine…

Intuitive Machines is pushing back the mission of its first lunar lander to mid-February in coordination with launch provider SpaceX, the company said earlier this week. The Houston, Texas-based company…

Travel just north of Austin, Texas, and you might find yourself in startling proximity to a lunar lander. That’s Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander, a 6.6-foot-tall spacecraft that the company…

Japanese space company ispace has invested over $40 million in its new U.S. subsidiary to date, as it looks to take advantage of growing investment from NASA and the Pentagon…

Masten Space Systems began the process of filing for bankruptcy on Thursday, telling a Delaware court that it owed millions in liabilities to companies including SpaceX, Astrobotic, NuSpace and others.…

NASA’s big mission to hunt for water on the moon has slipped by another year, to 2024, due to the agency requesting further testing of the lander that will deliver…

Masten Space Systems, a startup that’s aiming to send a lander to the moon in 2023, will develop a lunar navigation and positioning system not unlike GPS here on Earth.…

SpaceX is set to send a payload to the moon in 2023, using its larger (and infrequently used) Falcon Heavy launch vehicle. The mission will fly a lander built by…

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will be providing NASA with a valuable scientific tool ahead of the U.S. space agency’s goal of returning to the Moon: The ability to run experiments…

The first commercial lunar landers are set to start making their trips to the moon as early as this year, and now another one has a confirmed ride booked: Intuitive…

Voyager Space Holdings, one of the companies that has been on a bit of an acquisitive spree recently as it looks to put together a comprehensive and multi-vertical space technology…

Lunar exploration startup Astrobotic is working on developing ultra-fast wireless charging technology for its CubeRover shoebox-sized lunar robotic explorers. The project, which is funded by NASA’s Tipping Point program with…

Japanese startup ispace, which is developing lander technology to support exploration of the moon, is opening an office in Denver, the company announced today. The Colorado location was chosen because…

U.K.-based robotic rover startup Spacebit has booked a second payload delivery to the moon, aboard the Nova-C lander that Intuitive Machines is planning to send in 2021 as part of…

Carnegie Mellon University and spin-off space startup Astrobotic are developing a robotic rover to look for water on the moon, and the little bot just passed the crucial preliminary design…

NASA wants to procure samples of lunar soil from private contractors, the agency announced today in a blog post by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. This is part of the agency’s…

NASA wants its private commercial space company partners to make more moon deliveries on its behalf: The agency just issued another request for scientific and experimental payloads that need lunar…

SpaceX has secured a contract to act as the launch partner for Masten Space Systems, one of the companies awarded a NASA launch contract under that agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload…

Blue Origin and the members of its “national team” — Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper — have delivered a full-scale engineering prototype of their human lunar lander to NASA…

Japanese new space startup ispace has revealed the final design of its HAKUTO-R lunar lander, a spacecraft set to make its first touchdown on the moon in 2022 if all…

NASA has signed a new agreement with Japan that lays out plans for the two nations to cooperate on the International Space Station (continuing existing partnership between the countries there)…

NASA has selected a company to fly its VIPER rover to the moon. Its mission will be a crucial step in its Artemis program as it will help the agency…

Rocket Lab is already in the testing phase for a new engine it’s building to propel its forthcoming Photon Lunar spacecraft, according to CEO and founder Peter Beck. Beck shared…

Carnegie Mellon University is one step closer to operating its robotic rover on the surface of the Moon: The school’s diminutive bot has passed a crucial NASA design review, performed…

Blue Origin was among the companies selected by NASA to develop and build a human lander system for its Artemis missions, which include delivering the next man and first woman…

NASA has selected the companies that will provide them with the human landing system for their Artemis moon missions, including a lander vehicle that will carry astronauts from space to…

Firefly Aerospace has signed an agreement with Spaceflight Inc. that provides Spaceflight with the majority of the payload capacity aboard a Firefly launch vehicle scheduled to take off from Vandenberg…