Spacebit has signed a joint agreement with Astrobotic to initiate commercial and scientific lunar exploration, with the first mission scheduled for 2021 on the Peregrine lunar lander.

This agreement comes after Spacebit examined the field of commercial lunar delivery providers and determined Astrobotic to be a leading provider with one of the most technically mature lunar lander programs. With this announcement, Spacebit joins Astrobotic’s existing manifest of 16-signed contracts toward Peregrine Mission One.

Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander.

CEO of Spacebit, Pavlo Tanasyuk, said that the company could not be more excited to fly this mission with Astrobotic. This mission will result in the first payload from the UK to reach the Moon surface and will mark the beginning of a new era in commercial space exploration for Britain.

Astrobotic CEO John Thornton added that the company is excited to bring Spacebit’s first payload to the Moon. Spacebit has pioneered a captivating new way of working on the lunar surface, and we look forward to more details being released soon.