WASHINGTON, DC (NASA PR) — NASA will continue its partnerships with three U.S. companies that are advancing technologies to deliver cargo payloads to the lunar surface. The partners—Astrobotic Technology, Inc., of Pittsburgh, Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California, and Moon Express of Cape Canaveral, Florida—began work in 2014 under NASA’s Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) initiative. The original three-year agreements were amended to extend the work for another two years.
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“Astrobotic Technologies”
Griffin Lander. (Credit: Astrobotic Technology)
TOKYO (Astrobotic PR) – Astrobotic Technology, Inc. announced today that it will carry a rover for Team AngelicvM, the Google Lunar XPRIZE team from Chile, to the surface of the Moon on Astrobotic’s first lunar mission. Team AngelicvM joins Team HAKUTO, the Japanese Google Lunar XPRIZE team, which announced a partnership with Astrobotic earlier this year.
Dream Chaser shuttle. (Credit: NASA)
Second of 2 Stories
It was a busy year for a number of commercial space companies. While most of them made considerable progress, the news wasn’t all good.
A Dream Deferred
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) had a pretty rough year, losing out on two major contracts and laying off more than 100 employees.
On a Friday in May, just as everyone was preparing for the long Memorial Day weekend, Virgin Galactic announced it was dumping the hybrid rubber motor SNC developed for SpaceShipTwo in favor of a hybrid nylon one produced by Scaled Composites.