Nano-satellite launcher Tyvak is getting calls from would-be customers, but they aren’t your normal queries.
The company already sends material into space.
These callers want to send stuff to the moon.
The Irvine-based company, owned by Terran Orbital Corp., will provide a moon lander for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program—and Tyvak is ready to talk business.
COO Marco Villa told the Business Journal he’d started taking calls, including from international prospects.
“We are looking into how to facilitate” this, Villa said. Anyone with “an idea [of what] they’d like to get to the moon … now they have an avenue.”
Create Space
Payloads could contain elements to create “the entire infrastructure and knowledge needed to have a long-term environment” on the moon, for instance, reflectors that would help future missions navigate the route, he said.
Another option: “pure commercial missions” whether recreational activities and products or companies advancing “their skills in support of scientific and long-term needs [such as] remote drilling on the moon,” according to Villa.
NASA said this year that CLPS science and technology payloads can “advance capabilities for science, exploration, or commercial development of the moon.”
Commercial payloads—and equipment from other governments—could by “separate agreement, one-on-one with whoever is interested,” fly to the moon along with NASA payloads, Villa said.
Lunar Return
Tyvak looks to a 2022 start for most of the moon-shot project, said Villa, who didn’t specify funding or revenue—though NASA in September separately awarded a $13.7 million lunar project contract that will include a spacecraft, about the size of a microwave oven, built by Tyvak.
Landers will come in various versions; the 300-kilogram (661-pound) model can carry 30 kilos of payload, though the company aims to deliver smaller payloads first and with a modular, flexible approach increase the size over time.
Technology and expertise from its small-satellite work—it’s launched some 200 globally—will feed the lunar lander effort, including payload integration, launch services, and operations to land on the moon’s surface. Tyvak facilitates all the flights, Villa said.
The lunar lander could contribute to longer-term efforts by NASA to one day send people back to the moon, as well.
