Astrobotic

Astrobotic builds lunar landers and sells the ride. Peregrine, the first, was sized for small payloads; Griffin, the second, is large enough to deliver a rover. The customers book space by the kilogram, NASA foremost among them through its commercial lunar delivery programme, which awarded Astrobotic some of its earliest and largest task orders.

The company has Carnegie Mellon roots and predates almost everyone in the market: it was founded in Pittsburgh in the Google Lunar X Prize era and outlasted the prize itself, surviving on NASA contracts and patience until commercial lunar delivery became a funded programme.

Peregrine launched in January 2024 and never got its chance: a propellant leak hours after separation drained it, and it was steered to a destructive reentry ten days later. Griffin lost its headline payload when NASA cancelled the VIPER rover mid-build, then slipped to late 2026. The record so far is one mission flown and lost before landing. What changed in 2026 is ownership: Voyager Technologies bought Astrobotic in a deal worth about $300 million, closing in July, and NASA followed with a $298 million order for a second Peregrine mission, so the lander line now continues under a listed parent alongside Nanoracks.