![](http://satnews.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/5eb019b2a2200.jpg)
Artistic rendition of Astrobotic’s lunar lander on the moon.
Astrobotic has been selected to develop and lead a new commercial payload service onboard the Dynetics Human Landing System (HLS).
Dynetics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Leidos, was recently announced as one of three awardees by NASA to develop a new commercial lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis Program. The design and development of HLS for Artemis will land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024. With this new approach, the human lander will carry astronaut crews as well as commercial payload shipments.
Astrobotic’s multi-year experience in lunar payload integration across 16 payload deals to date will now be leveraged to bring payloads onboard the Dynetics’ human lander from companies, governments, universities, and non-profits. Astrobotic will become the front door service for organizations around the world to send their payloads to the Moon on this new lander. Astrobotic will assist payload customers in successfully integrating with the human lander in preparation for launch and subsequent operation on the Moon.
Astrobotic CEO, John Thornton, said that as the leading lunar payload delivery provider, the company is thrilled to begin setting up this new sales offering onboard the Dynetics human lander. With payload expertise from Astrobotic’s Peregrine and Griffin lunar lander programs, the company is now poised to extend the firm’s payload services to include the Dynetics human lander. This is another important step in commercial lunar development.