Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to hire companies to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon. Most landing sites are near the lunar south pole where they will scout for lunar resources, test in situ resource utilization (ISRU) concepts, and perform lunar science to support the Artemis lunar program. CLPS is intended to buy end-to-end payload services between Earth and the lunar surface using fixed-price contracts. The program achieved the first landing on the Moon by a commercial company in history with the IM-1 mission in 2024. The program was extended to add support for large payloads starting after 2025. In 2026 NASA proposed a "CLPS 2.0" initiative.
The CLPS program is run by NASA's Science Mission Directorate along with the Human Exploration and Operations and Space Technology Mission directorates. NASA expects the contractors to provide all activities necessary to safely integrate, accommodate, transport, and operate NASA payloads, including launch vehicles, lunar lander spacecraft, lunar surface systems, Earth re-entry vehicles and associated resources.
Eight missions have been contracted under the program (excluding a mission contract that was revoked after awarding, and a mission contract that was cancelled after the contracted company went bankrupt).
List of missions announced under CLPS
Missions contracted Orbit Beyond returned their task order (canceling their mission) two months after the award in 2019. That mission is not listed below. NoNameLaunchContractorLanderLaunch VehicleAwardedLunarDestinationNotesOutcomeTO2-ABPeregrine Mission One8 January 2024Astrobotic TechnologyPeregrineVulcan Centaur VC2SMay 2019Gruithuisen DomesCarried 5 CLPS payloads. Propellant leak prevented landing attempt.TO2-IMIM-115 February 2024Intuitive MachinesNova-C OdysseusFalcon 9 Block 5May 2019Near Carried 6 CLPS payloads. First landing. Significantly tipped after landing, limiting mission duration, but was still able to complete most scientific missions. TO 19D Blue Ghost Mission 115 January 2025Firefly AerospaceBlue GhostFalcon 9 Block 5February 2021Mare CrisiumCarried 10 CLPS payloads. First fully successful landing of the CLPS Program CLPS3 IM-2 Intuitive Machines Nova-C Athena Falcon 9 Block 5 October 2020 Mons Mouton Carried 4 CLPS payloads, including PRIME-1. Tipped during landing preventing few meaningful scientific experiments from being performed. TO 20A Griffin Mission I November 2026 Astrobotic Technology Griffin Falcon Heavy June 2020 Nobile Crater Will carry FLIP rover from Venturi Astrolab. CP11 IM-3 Early 2027 Intuitive Machines Nova-C Falcon 9 Block 5 November 2021 Reiner Gamma Will carry payloads, including ESA's MoonLIGHT. CS-3 Blue Ghost Mission 2Early 2027 Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost & Elytra Falcon 9 Block 5 March 2023 Far side Will deliver a CLMSS payload to lunar orbit; LuSEE-Night to the surface. Should become first US soft landing on the far side of the Moon. TO CT-3 Blue Moon Pathfinder Mission 1 Early 2027 Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 1 New Glenn 7x2 July 2024 Shackleton Connecting Ridge Test flight of Blue Moon Mark 1 lander. Testing technologies for Human Landing System. Will carry Stereo Cameras and Laser Retroreflective Array. CP22IM-4 2027Intuitive MachinesNova-CAugust 2024South PoleWill carry payloads, including ESA's . CS-7 Blue Moon Pathfinder Mission 2 Late 2027 Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 1 New Glenn 7x2 September 2025 South Pole Has opportunity to carry NASA's VIPER Rover CP21 Blue Ghost Mission 3 2028 Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost December 2024 Gruithuisen domes Peregrine Mission Two Late 2028 Astrobotic Technology Peregrine June 2026 Peregrine Mission Three Late 2028 Astrobotic Technology Peregrine June 2026 IM-6 Late 2028 Intuitive Machines Nova-C June 2026 Blue Ghost Mission 5 Late 2028 Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost June 2026Near Side CS-6 Blue Ghost Mission 4 2029 Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost July 2025 South Pole IM-5 2030 Intuitive Machines Nova-D March 2026 Mons Malapert
Missions announced but not yet contracted
NoNameLaunch Contractor Lander Launch VehicleAwardedLunarDestinationNotesOutcome2027Ina volcanic craterThe DIMPLE payload, short for Dating an Irregular Mare Patch with a Lunar Explorer, will fly on a future CLPS provider's mission. DIMPLE will investigate the Ina irregular mare patch.
Cancelled missions
NoNameLaunch Contractor Lander Launch VehicleAwardedLunarDestinationNotesOutcomeMasten Mission OneIntended: November 2023Masten SpaceXL-1Falcon 9SpaceX to Launch Masten Lunar Mission in 2022 . Meagan Crawford, Masten Press Release. August 26, 2020.April 2020South PoleIntended to deliver several hundreds of kilograms of payload to the lunar surface. Masten Space filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, with nearly all of their assets sold to Astrobotic Technology. CLPS12 ispace Mission 5 2030 Draper Laboratory / ispace Ultra July 2022 Schrödinger Basin Was expected to carry LuSEE-Lite. Farside Seismic Suite (FSS), Lunar Interior Temperature and Materials Suite (LITMS). Order cancelled in mutual agreement with NASA in July 2026. History
NASA has been planning the exploration and use of natural lunar resources for many years. A variety of exploration, science, and technology objectives that could be addressed by regularly sending instruments, experiments and other small payloads to the Moon have been identified by NASA.
When the concept study on the Resource Prospector rover was cancelled in April 2018, NASA officials explained that lunar surface exploration would continue in the future, but using commercial lander services under a new CLPS program. Later that April, NASA announced the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program as the first step in the solicitation for flights to the Moon. In April 2018, CLPS issued a Draft Request for Proposal, and in September 2018 the CLPS Request for Proposal was issued as a formal solicitation.
On November 29, 2018, NASA announced the first nine companies that would be allowed to bid on contracts, which were indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts with a combined maximum contract value of $2.6 billion over ten years.
In February 2018, NASA issued a solicitation for Lunar Surface Instrument and Technology Payloads that may become CLPS customers. Proposals were due by November 2018 and January 17, 2019. NASA makes annual calls for proposals.
On May 31, 2019, NASA announced a list of awards, to Astrobotic, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, $79.5 million; Intuitive Machines, of Houston, Texas, $77 million; and OrbitBeyond, $97 million; to launch their Moon landers. However, Orbit Beyond dropped out in July 2019 (with NASA acknowledging termination of contract on July 29, 2019), but remained able to bid on future missions. In January 2024, NASA reported the initial award to Astrobotic had grown to $108 million, to carry five NASA science payloads instead of the initial number of 14, and that the contract value for Intuitive Machines had increased to $118 million.
On July 1, 2019, a $5.6 million contract was awarded to Astrobotic and its partner Carnegie Mellon University to develop MoonRanger, a rover to carry payloads on the Moon for NASA's CLPS.Astrobotic Awarded US$5.6 Million NASA Contract to Deliver Autonomous Moon Rover Astrobotic July 1, 2019 Launch was envisioned for either 2021 or 2022. The rover would carry science payloads yet to be determined and developed by other providers, that would focus on scouting and creating 3D maps of a polar region for signs of water ice or lunar pits for entrances to Moon caves.Julia Mericle (July 2, 2019). Astrobotic awarded NASA funding to build autonomous rover Pittsburgh Business Times. . The rover would operate mostly autonomously for up to one week.
On November 18, 2019, NASA added five contractors to the group of companies eligible to bid to deliver large payloads to the lunar surface under the CLPS program: Blue Origin, Ceres Robotics, Sierra Nevada Corporation, SpaceX, and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.
On April 8, 2020, NASA announced it had awarded the fourth (after Astrobotic's, Intuitive Machines' and OrbitBeyond's awards) CLPS contract for Masten Space Systems. The contract, worth $75.9 million, was for Masten's XL-1 lunar lander to deliver payloads from NASA and other customers to the south pole of the Moon in late 2022.
On June 11, 2020, NASA awarded Astrobotic Technology its second CLPS contract. The mission would be the first flight of Astrobotic's larger Griffin lander. Griffin weighs 450 kg. The award was for $199.5 million which covers Griffin lander and launch costs. The mission was scheduled for November 2024.
On October 16, 2020, NASA awarded Intuitive Machines their second CLPS contract for Intuitive Machines Mission 2 (IM-2). The contract was worth approximately $47 million. Using a Nova-C lander, the mission would land a drill (PRIME-1) combined with a mass spectrometer near the Lunar south pole, to attempt harvesting ice from below the surface. The mission was scheduled for December 2022, using a Falcon 9 rocket.
On February 4, 2021, NASA awarded a CLPS contract to Firefly Aerospace, of Cedar Park, Texas, for approximately $93.3 million, to deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023 (later delayed to 2024). This was the sixth award (seventh counting the OrbitBeyond award that was later cancelled) for lunar surface delivery (a lunar lander) under the CLPS initiative. This was the first delivery awarded to Firefly Aerospace, which would provide the lunar delivery service using its Blue Ghost lander, designed and developed at the company Cedar Park facility.
The next (seventh, not counting the OrbitBeyond contract) CLPS contract was awarded by NASA on November 17, 2021 to Intuitive Machines, their 3rd award. Their Nova-C lander was contracted to land four NASA payloads (about 92 kg in total) to study a lunar feature called Reiner Gamma. The mission was known as IM-3 mission and was planned to land on the Moon in 2024. The contract value was $77.5 million and under the contract, Intuitive Machines was responsible for end-to-end delivery services, including payload integration, delivery from Earth to the surface of the Moon, and payload operations.
On July 21, 2022, NASA announced that it had awarded a CLPS contract (8th, not counting OrbitBeyond) worth $73 million to a team led by the company Draper. The mission targeted Schrödinger Basin on the farside of the Moon, planned for 2025. The mission lander, called SERIES-2 by Draper, would deliver to Schrödinger Basin three experiments to collect seismic data, measure the heat flow and electrical conductivity of the lunar subsurface and measure electromagnetic phenomena created by the interaction of the solar wind and plasma with the lunar surface. This mission would be the first CLPS mission to target the lunar far side, and aims to be the second landing (after China's Chang'e-4) to the Moon's far side. The mission would also develop and deploy two data relay satellites, a must for missions in the lunar far side. Many companies are involved in the mission with Draper being the prime contractor, including ispace. On September 29, 2023, ispace announced that the SERIES-2 lander had been comprehensively redesigned and renamed as APEX 1.0, causing the mission to be delayed to 2026.
Masten Space Systems filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, with nearly all their assets sold to Astrobotic Technology. This led to the cancellation of Masten's CLPS mission.
On March 14, 2023, NASA awarded Firefly a $112 million task order (8th CLPS contract, not counting OrbitBeyond or Masten Space Systems) for a mission to the far side of the Moon using the second Blue Ghost lander, expected to launch in 2026.