Mary-Louise Hoffman
Israel Aerospace Industries and Firefly Aerospace have teamed up to create a scientific payload delivery platform for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
Firefly said Tuesday the partnership intends to base its CLPS technology offering on the robotic Beresheet spacecraft, co-developed by IAI and SpaceIL.
NASA chose nine companies in late 2018 to bid for payload integration, operations and other delivery support services through a potential 10-year, $2.6B contract.
Tom Markusic, CEO of Firefly, said the company aims to design a complete lunar science mission for the space agency and expand presence in the cislunar market through collaborative efforts with IAI.
The two companies formalized their alliance by signing an intellectual property and engineering support agreement.
