A rover the size of a Jeep Wrangler is heading to the moon, and it’s going to need a big ride to get there. Astrolab Inc., the tiny startup that is building the rover, chose the biggest ride possible: Starship, the new giant spacecraft under development by Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company. On Friday, Astrolab announced that it had signed an agreement with SpaceX for its Flexible Logistics and Exploration Rover, or FLEX, to be a payload on an uncrewed Starship cargo mission that is to take off a
An artist’s concept of a competing lunar rover prototype from Northrop Grumman.
On Friday, Astrolab announced that it had signed an agreement with SpaceX for its Flexible Logistics and Exploration Rover, or FLEX, to be a payload on an uncrewed Starship cargo mission that is to take off as early as mid-2026.“This is SpaceX’s first commercial cargo contract to the lunar surface,” said Jaret Matthews, founder and CEO of Astrolab.
Although the Soviet Union in the 1970s and more recently China have landed robotic rovers on the moon, the United States has yet to send any. Matthews declined to say how much it would cost to get FLEX to the moon or how much money Astrolab has raised. He said Astrolab would make money by lifting and deploying cargo for customers on the lunar surface. That could include scientific instruments. In the future, the rover could help build lunar infrastructure.“Essentially providing what I like to call last-mile mobility on the moon,” Matthews said. “You can kind of think of it like being UPS for the moon.
If those schedules hold, the commercial cargo mission with the Astrolab rover could take place the next year.
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