Partners with Voyager Space Exploration on Spacecraft Design for Delivery of Payloads to the Lunar Surface as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services

OAKLAND, CA, USA, May 16, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Having been selected by NASA to provide payload delivery services to the lunar surface through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS, pronounced “clips”) contract, Ceres Robotics, Inc. (‘Ceres”) announces successful completion of its Preliminary Design Review (PDR) of the Ceres B5 Lunar Lander. As part of the CLPS contract, Ceres plans to provide NASA with a family of US-built customizable lunar landers capable of landing at a precise lunar location, performing science experiments, test technologies, and demonstrating the capabilities for exploration of the Moon and preparing for human missions. Ceres B5 is a mission configurable lunar lander capable of delivering up to 500 kg of payloads to the lunar surface and provides those payloads with power, data, communications, and robotic manipulations, and can deploy payloads to lunar orbit or the surface to perform their goals.

“We are uniquely positioned to safely and cost-effectively land payloads at any location on the surface of the Moon. We are excited to help NASA achieve its goals as the first major step to return humans to the Moon under Artemis,” said Udit Shah, Lead Engineer for the B5 Lander at Ceres. “Our team of experienced engineers, designers, mission operations specialists, and partners have been developing the B5 lander since mid-2020. We have undergone successive system and subsystem level reviews and incorporated lessons from previous missions to mature the B5 Lander design, which has most of its hardware at the highest technology readiness level, 9.”

Ceres has built a cohesive team of space companies, each bringing the best of class in their respective technologies and proven experience in planetary flight missions. These companies combine to ensure low-risk, high-reliability end-to-end B5 Lander development and mission execution. The Ceres-led team includes Voyager Space Exploration Systems (Ohio), Draper Laboratory (Massachusetts), Stellar Exploration (California), Space Exploration Engineering (SEE) (Maryland), and Integrated Launch Solutions (ILS) (Florida).

“We are proud to be working as part of the Ceres team which has diligently advanced the B5 Lunar Lander over the years,” said Michael Johanson, Senior Vice President of Voyager Space Systems. “With the successful completion of the B5 Lander PDR, we are now planning the manufacturing and integration of the B5 Lunar Lander, which will be built, integrated, and tested at Voyager Space Center of Excellence in Ohio. Our experienced technicians and AS9100-certified quality management systems reduce risks associated with setting up new processes and facilities.”

Ceres was selected by NASA as a CLPS vendor in the second wave of onboarding vendors to have the opportunity to build and operate lunar lander missions. Ceres will provide end-to-end mission services to NASA under CLPS, including delivering science and technology payloads, integrating payloads onto the B5 lander, mission operations, launch, and soft and precision landing on the surface of the Moon. NASA selects each lunar lander mission by evaluating bids from CLPS vendors and scoring them against a number of factors, including technical, price, and schedule. Two or more new lunar flight missions are expected over the next year, with each leading to a contract to land on the lunar surface with a specific set of payloads in approximately three years. CLPS mission contracts are fixed-price contracts under the NASA CLPS indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity master contract with a cumulative maximum contract value of $2.6 billion over the program’s life.

“Ceres is committed to providing integrated, safe, affordable, and reliable commercial lunar payload services,” said Dr. Michael Sims, Ceres founder and CEO. “Since our on-ramp to CLPS, we have invested and created strategic partnerships to mature the B5 Lander. Our approach leverages the expertise, accomplishments, and learnings of our team’s experience with multiple space missions and past entrepreneurial efforts. Successful completion of the PDR is a major milestone and a testament to our team's progress toward providing a high-confidence, low-risk solution to NASA. We could not be more pleased with our team nor more proud to work with them in building and operating lunar missions for NASA and other customers.”

About Ceres Robotics, Inc

Ceres Robotics, Inc. is a new-space commercial company focused on building the tools that enable humanity to become a multi-planetary species. Ceres is disrupting the cost of carrying out planetary surface activities by combining modern technologies with lean, agile development. Ceres builds and supplies landers, rovers, surface robotics elements, and operations to enable and package full service affordable and high-impact missions in a ‘Missions as a Service’ model to NASA and for other customers. Ceres was founded in 2017 by NASA veteran Dr. Michael Sims and is located in California.

About Voyager Space

Voyager Space is dedicated to building a better future for humanity in space and on Earth. With over 35 years of spaceflight heritage and over 2,000 successful missions, Voyager is powering the commercial space revolution. Voyager delivers exploration, technology, and defense solutions to a global customer base, including civil and national security agencies, commercial companies, academic and research institutions, and more.

If you would like more information about this announcement, please contact Dr. Michael Sims, CEO of Ceres Robotics, at michael.sims@ceresrobotics.com.

Michael Sims
Ceres Robotics, Inc.
+1 650-274-3709
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