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2025 is going to be another big year for commercial moon missions

Several missions under contracts with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program are planned for this year.

Last year kicked off with the launch of Astrobotics’ Peregrine lander, marking the first of several missions led by companies working under multimillion-dollar contracts as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. John Couluris, a senior VP at Blue Origin, said in an interview with 60 Minutes last March that “we’re expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today.” At the time, the company hadn’t yet launched its New Glenn rocket — which would be the vehicle for this mission — even once, so that claim didn’t hold much weight. Griffin Mission 1 was initially supposed to carry NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), but the space agency canceled development of that project late last year due to delays and rising costs.

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