ASTROBOTIC

Astrobotic just unveiled the flight model of its robotic Peregrine lunar lander, which is slated to launch to the moon late this year.

A new space museum will have an unusual highlight: lunar artifacts that have yet to land on the moon. The Moonshot Museum will be hosted in the headquarters of Astrobotic, a company building landers and rovers for both NASA and commercial moon missions.

Several private companies launching moon landers later this year from Florida will kick off a grand campaign to better understand our nearest neighbor, with big implications for when NASA returns humans to the moon in a few short years.

NASA has a launcher for its ice-hunting rover that will land on the moon in 2023.

Astrobotic's Peregrine Mission One (PM1) mission patch represents the company's first flight of its Peregrine lunar lander and the first attempt to land a commercial spacecraft on the moon. The first commercial lunar landing now has a mission patch. Astrobotic's Peregrine Structural Test Model, a one-to-one scale representation of the Peregrine Mission One (PM1) lander, passed structural qualification testing in September 2020. Artist rendering of Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander after touching down on the moon. The Astrobotic's Peregrine Mission One patch will be available for sale in the coming months through Astrobotic's new online store, which the company expects to debut in early April.

Artist's illustration of Astrobotic's robotic Peregrine lander at Lacus Mortis on the moon. The Luna 02 mission is the 18th Celestis memorial spaceflight mission. Celestis' Luna 01 flight sent the "cremains" of the renowned astrogeologist Eugene Shoemaker to the moon aboard NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft in 1998. The Peregrine lander is slated to have six Celestis containers, each holding 10 to 13 flight capsules. Elysium Space, tooThe ashes of skydiver Micah Couch are on the Celestis Tranquility Flight.

Spacebit's moon rover on display at the New Scientist Live event in London on October 10, 2019. The U.K. is sending a robotic space exploration rover to the moon, in what will be a first for the country. The rover is a four-legged robot developed by British start-up Spacebit. The robot also comes equipped with cameras one of which can take "robot selfies" and can withstand big swings in temperature, from 130 degrees Celsius (266 degrees Fahrenheit) in the day to minus 130 degrees Celsius at night. The company signed an agreement with U.S. firm Astrobotic to launch its first mission in 2021 on Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander.

Astrobotic: From Pittsburgh to the moon? A team of engineers and scientists from Pittsburgh has gotten one step closer to its moonshot, winning $750,000 on its way to the final round of the Google Lunar XPrize competition. The ultimate winner of the global challenge will launch a mission to the moon in 2016.

Astrobotic lifts off on quest for Google Lunar XPrize Astrobotic, a team from Pittsburgh, is one of 18 teams competing in the Google Lunar XPrize, a race to get to the moon with a $30 million payoff. It recently completed an important test at the Mojave Air and Space Port. CNET's Tim Stevens is following the competition.