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Lunar rover developer Astrolab has signed an agreement with SpaceX to transport its first rover to the moon on a future Starship flight. Astrolab said it has arranged to fly the Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover it is developing as a payload on a Starship lunar lander mission scheduled for as soon as mid-2026. The companies did not disclose the value of the agreement, which Astrolab says is the first commercial contract SpaceX has signed for lunar cargo delivery.<\/p>\n
Jaret Matthews, founder, and chief executive of Astrolab said in an interview that the mission, which will include 1,000 kilograms of customer payloads, will be the first flight of the FLEX rover. It will be a rideshare payload on a Starship mission landing somewhere in the south-polar region of the moon. \u201cBecause our rover can traverse up to a couple of thousand kilometers in a given year, we\u2019re less sensitive to exactly where we land,\u201d he said. \u201c It is definitely optimized for the south polar region because that\u2019s fundamentally where we think that the bulk of the activity is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Astrolab has not disclosed specific customers for the mission, but he said they have a variety of planned applications, from resource utilization to data. \u201cWe are taking care of the core functions of mobility, navigation, communication, and power, and that allows them to really focus on whatever they want to specifically achieve,\u201d he said, adding that Astrolab expects to announce details about its customers in the coming months. The company unveiled its plans for FLEX a year ago after performing tests of a prototype in the California desert. The design is now at about the preliminary design review stage of maturity, Matthews said, with a particular focus on a robotic arm for the rover that has six degrees of freedom for deploying instruments or other payloads.<\/p>\n
He emphasized the benefits the rover\u2019s modular design provides to potential customers. \u201cThis modular concept allows us to have adaptive utility,\u201d he said. \u201cYou land new implements or new cargo over time, and it refreshes, it renews what you can do with the platform. That\u2019s our big differentiator.\u201d Astrolab is preparing to offer FLEX to NASA for the agency\u2019s upcoming Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) competition. NASA is expected to issue a call for proposals by May for the LTV, which will be used by astronauts on missions starting with Artemis 5 in the late 2020s as well as be able to be controlled robotically between human landings. \u201cWe\u2019re excited about that program It\u2019s well aligned with what we\u2019re doing,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cWe are certainly going to throw our hat in the ring.\u201d He added that he hopes that NASA pursues a services model for the LTV program, much as it has done with the Human Landing System landers.<\/p>\n
Astrolab now has more than 20 full-time employees along with strategic partnerships that he said allow the company \u201cto punch well above our weight\u201d, particularly for the upcoming LTV competition, where major aerospace companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have announced plans to offer rovers to NASA. \u201cThat\u2019s going to allow us to be first to market with this service.\u201d Astrolab has not disclosed how much money it has raised, but Matthews raised the possibility of being able to fund the development of FLEX through customer contracts. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that that revenue stream will allow us to execute on this plan, perhaps without necessarily having to raise,\u201d he said. But, he added, \u201cTo the extent that investors are interested in what we\u2019re doing, we\u2019re more than happy to talk to them.\u201d<\/p>\n