Astrobotic to deliver Spacebit payload to the Moon

At this week's UK Space Conference, UK space company Spacebit signed a joint agreement with Pennsylvania-based space robotics firm Astrobotic to begin commercial and scientific lunar exploration with the first mission in 2021 on the Peregrine lunar lander.

Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander will be launched on a Vulcan Centaur rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch will carry the first lunar lander from American soil since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

The agreement came after Spacebit shopped the field of commercial lunar delivery providers and found Astrobotic to be the world's leading provider with one of the most technically mature lunar lander programmes. With this announcement, Spacebit joins Astrobotic's existing manifest of 16-signed contracts toward Peregrine Mission One.

Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander delivers payloads to the Moon for companies, governments, universities, non-profits, and individuals for $1.2-million (€1.1-million) per kilogram. Astrobotic was chosen by NASA in May 2019 for a $79.5-million (€72.7-million) contract to deliver payloads to the Moon in 2021. The company also has more than 30 prior and ongoing NASA and commercial technology contracts, a commercial partnership with Airbus DS, and a corporate sponsorship with DHL.

CEO of Spacebit, Pavlo Tanasyuk, said: "We could not be more excited to fly this mission with Astrobotic. This mission will result in the first payload from the UK to reach the Moon surface and mark the beginning of a new era in commercial space exploration for Britain."

"Astrobotic is very excited to bring Spacebit's first payload to the Moon. Spacebit has pioneered a captivating new way of working on the lunar surface, and we look forward to more details being released soon," said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton.

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