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Astrobotics is a spinoff from Carnegie Mellon university that is building a lunar lander & rover system for the $30M Google Lunar X-Prize competition, but their mission goes well beyond GLXP.
They want to build an infrastructure that will let them fly payloads to the moon on a commercial basis; meaning researchers, NASA, whoever could pay them to deliver rovers, experiments or whatever to the lunar surface - or perhaps later to other bodies - using a mass-produced system instead of one-offs.
Payloads can be fixed on the lander, or customers can build on their rovers basic systems for roll your own rover missions. The co-hosting of several payloads is possible on a single flight. All comms are relayed through the lander, simplifying the payload designs.
Their GLXP entry has signed up to be launched on a Falcon 9, which they also list as their primary launch vehicle in their users guide.
Links & pics below.
Home: http://astrobotic.net/
Astrobotics Payload Users Guide (PDF)....
They want to build an infrastructure that will let them fly payloads to the moon on a commercial basis; meaning researchers, NASA, whoever could pay them to deliver rovers, experiments or whatever to the lunar surface - or perhaps later to other bodies - using a mass-produced system instead of one-offs.
Payloads can be fixed on the lander, or customers can build on their rovers basic systems for roll your own rover missions. The co-hosting of several payloads is possible on a single flight. All comms are relayed through the lander, simplifying the payload designs.
Their GLXP entry has signed up to be launched on a Falcon 9, which they also list as their primary launch vehicle in their users guide.
Links & pics below.
Home: http://astrobotic.net/
Astrobotics Payload Users Guide (PDF)....