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| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | Astrobotic | Blue Origin | JAXA |
| Prime contractor | Astrobotic | Blue Origin (with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, Honeybee Robotics on prime team) | Mitsubishi Electric |
| Status | In development | In development | Landed |
| Customer | NASA-CLPS | NASA-HLS | JAXA |
| Launch date | 2026-07 (NET) | 2030 (NET — Artemis V crewed); uncrewed demo 2027 | 2023-09-06 |
| Landing date | — | — | 2024-01-19 |
| Landing site | Lunar south pole region | Lunar south pole — 30-day surface stays | Near Shioli crater, Mare Nectaris (~10 m precision vs 100 m target) |
| Payload | Venturi Astrolab FLIP rover + mass-simulator + secondary payloads (2026-05-28) | 20 t reusable / 30 t one-way to surface; crew 2-4 for up to 30 days (2026-01-04) | LEV-1 (2.1 kg hopper) + LEV-2 'SORA-Q' (0.25 kg sphere) (2024-01-19) |
| Contract value | $199.5M (2020-06-11) | $3.4B (2023-05-19) | — |
| Outcome | NASA cancelled VIPER July 2024 citing cost overruns; saved ~$84M vs ~$104M completion cost. Astrobotic retained the lander demonstration task. Mission slipped from late 2025 to NET July 2026. FLIP rover (Venturi Astrolab) selected as replacement manifest. | Selected May 2023 as second HLS provider for sustained Artemis-era lunar operations. Full-scale prototype delivered to NASA Johnson Space Center in early 2026 for astronaut training. Completed third pressurized suit-test campaign with NASA Johnson's Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS). | First Japanese soft landing; made Japan the 5th nation to soft-land on the Moon. One of two main engines failed at ~50 m altitude; lander touched down on its side but still met 100-m precision goal. Survived four lunar-night cycles despite not being designed for it; declared concluded 2024-08-23. |
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Underlying dataset: GET /api/moon/landers. Methodology: /moon/methodology.