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The first commercial lunar landing for a non-spacefaring soverign nation has been booked -- by Mexico.
AEM (Agencia Espacial Mexicana) has put out an RFP to universities and other Mexican entities to develop payloads for the Astrobotic Google Lunar X-Prize lander. Astrobotic's Griffin commercial lunar lander will fly on a Falcon 9 "v1.2" in 2016.
This is a business model Bigelow Aerospace has been pursuing for commercial space stations.
Aviation Week....
Concept of descent into a lunar "skylight" structure
AEM (Agencia Espacial Mexicana) has put out an RFP to universities and other Mexican entities to develop payloads for the Astrobotic Google Lunar X-Prize lander. Astrobotic's Griffin commercial lunar lander will fly on a Falcon 9 "v1.2" in 2016.
This is a business model Bigelow Aerospace has been pursuing for commercial space stations.
Aviation Week....
Mexico Buys A Ride To The Moon
​Mexicos fledgling space agency has purchased a ride to the surface of the Moon from one of the contenders for the Google Lunar X-Prize, potentially opening the door to a new commercial space market that could one day include human sovereign clients.
Astrobotic, which hopes to take the $20 million first prize for a private robotic landing on the Moon, and then use the technology it is developing for that to build a lunar FedEx or DHL-type business, has signed the Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM) as a payload customer for the lander it is building to take a small rover to the surface.
Astrobotic is not the first company to offer commercial spaceflight services to governments unable or unwilling to develop their own, but it appears to be the first to sign one up as a paying customer. Bigelow Aerospace uses the phrase sovereign client to describe a major target of its marketing developing-nation agencies such as AEMas it continues to push the use of its expandable orbiting habitats as commercial space stations for government-backed research.
Mexicos goals with the Astrobotic agreement are more modest. The AEM has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to Mexican companies and universities seeking a payload to be integrated with Astrobotics Griffin lander, named for the mythological four-legged flying creature. Created in July 2010, the agency is trying to find a niche for Mexico in space to expand its aerospace industry and inspire its science and engineering students.
Mexico and other Latin American countries want to participate more and more in the great missions of humankind in the space age, even in a modest, even in a gradual way, that will provide us with knowledge and technology that will be used for other Mexican and Latin American needs, says AEM General Director Francisco Javier Mendieta Jimenez.
That is the motivation Bigelow is trying to tap with its pitch to sovereign clients. The company has two of its inflatable spacecraft in unmanned orbital flight test, and is set to launch an expandable module to the International Space Station (ISS) late this year for human trials with station crew members.
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​Mexicos fledgling space agency has purchased a ride to the surface of the Moon from one of the contenders for the Google Lunar X-Prize, potentially opening the door to a new commercial space market that could one day include human sovereign clients.
Astrobotic, which hopes to take the $20 million first prize for a private robotic landing on the Moon, and then use the technology it is developing for that to build a lunar FedEx or DHL-type business, has signed the Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM) as a payload customer for the lander it is building to take a small rover to the surface.
Astrobotic is not the first company to offer commercial spaceflight services to governments unable or unwilling to develop their own, but it appears to be the first to sign one up as a paying customer. Bigelow Aerospace uses the phrase sovereign client to describe a major target of its marketing developing-nation agencies such as AEMas it continues to push the use of its expandable orbiting habitats as commercial space stations for government-backed research.
Mexicos goals with the Astrobotic agreement are more modest. The AEM has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to Mexican companies and universities seeking a payload to be integrated with Astrobotics Griffin lander, named for the mythological four-legged flying creature. Created in July 2010, the agency is trying to find a niche for Mexico in space to expand its aerospace industry and inspire its science and engineering students.
Mexico and other Latin American countries want to participate more and more in the great missions of humankind in the space age, even in a modest, even in a gradual way, that will provide us with knowledge and technology that will be used for other Mexican and Latin American needs, says AEM General Director Francisco Javier Mendieta Jimenez.
That is the motivation Bigelow is trying to tap with its pitch to sovereign clients. The company has two of its inflatable spacecraft in unmanned orbital flight test, and is set to launch an expandable module to the International Space Station (ISS) late this year for human trials with station crew members.
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