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| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | Astrobotic | CNSA | ispace |
| Prime contractor | Astrobotic | China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) | ispace |
| Status | In development | Landed | Lost |
| Customer | NASA-CLPS | CNSA | private |
| Launch date | 2026-07 (NET) | 2024-05-03 | 2022-12-11 |
| Landing date | — | 2024-06-01 | 2023-04-25 |
| Landing site | Lunar south pole region | Apollo crater, South Pole-Aitken Basin (lunar far side) | Atlas crater, Mare Frigoris (planned; impacted at altitude ~5 km) |
| Payload | Venturi Astrolab FLIP rover + mass-simulator + secondary payloads (2026-05-28) | 1,935.3 g of lunar far-side regolith returned to Earth (2024-06-25) | Rashid rover (10 kg, UAE/MBRSC) + Sora-Q (0.25 kg, JAXA) + commercial (2023-04-25) |
| Contract value | $199.5M (2020-06-11) | — | — |
| 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. | First-ever sample return from the lunar far side and the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Used the Queqiao-2 relay satellite for far-side comms. Samples revealed unexpectedly cohesive grain behavior and excavated material from the Moon's mantle. | Travelled ~1.4M km — at the time, furthest a privately funded spacecraft had flown. Software flagged the radar altimeter as faulty after the lander crossed a crater rim cliff and ignored its readings. Lander ran out of fuel hovering ~5 km above surface and free-fell. |
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Underlying dataset: GET /api/moon/landers. Methodology: /moon/methodology.