Voyager completes acquisition of Astrobotic
Voyager Technologies has completed its acquisition of lunar infrastructure company Astrobotic Technology, weeks after Astrobotic won two NASA lunar lander missions.
Voyager announced July 13 that it closed the acquisition it announced June 2. Voyager is paying $162 million in cash and stock for Astrobotic, along with the assumption of $9 million in debt. The deal includes $129 million in additional earnout payments contingent on meeting performance milestones.
The deal closes just after Astrobotic shipped its Griffin-1 lunar lander from its Pittsburgh headquarters to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for environmental tests ahead of a launch planned for as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. The lander will deliver Astrolab's FLIP rover to the moon, as well as several smaller payloads.
It also comes after NASA awarded Astrobotic two missions of its smaller Peregrine lander on June 30 for $298 million. Those landers are set to launch in 2028 carrying an identical set of three NASA payloads, with the potential for additional payloads.
With the acquisition now complete, Voyager has rechristened Astrobotic as Voyager Lunar Systems. John Thornton, the longtime chief executive of Astrobotic, will remain as head of Voyager Lunar Systems.
"Astrobotic was built to make the moon accessible to the world, and joining Voyager will hit the accelerator on that mission for our customers," Thornton said in a statement. "As Voyager Lunar Systems, we'll continue building capabilities that advance both American leadership in space and our national interests."
Voyager has pledged to invest in Astrobotic and its Pittsburgh facilities. "We're going to be investing into the state of Pennsylvania, into Pittsburgh, to really help scale them up," Matthew Kuta, president of Voyager, said in an interview. That includes expanding those facilities and hiring staff.
The acquisition of Astrobotic, which is also developing lunar power technologies, fits into a broader lunar initiative at Voyager that includes a partnership with and investment in Max Space, a company developing inflatable habitats that could be used on the moon. Voyager has also developed technologies relevant to lunar exploration, such as a coating for materials to prevent the buildup of lunar dust.
"You can start to see where this is going, where it's a broader lunar strategy," Kuta said. "It's really starting to come together."
Astrobotic's capabilities extend beyond the moon. The company was one of seven selected by NASA on July 8 for awards through its Science Transport and Robotic Innovation for Deployment and Exploration, or STRIDE, program to develop robotic mobility technologies for future Mars missions. The seven awards have a combined value of $17 million.
Voyager's space strategy has been one the company calls "LEO, Lunar, Lagrange," representing low Earth orbit, the moon and beyond. The Mars work fits into that third category, Kuta said.
He added that while Voyager is looking for ways to invest in Astrobotic's capabilities to pursue lunar landers and other projects, the company is also looking at ways to use other Astrobotic capabilities. That includes the company's work on a rotating-detonation rocket engine tested earlier this year at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and suborbital technology testbeds.
Voyager, he noted, is working on propulsion for national security applications such as missile defense. "So, I think there's going to be a lot of mutual synergies there as we continue to expand that business line," he said.
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