PITTSBURGH, Sept. 29, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Astrobotic Technology Inc. and Lunar Missions Ltd, the company behind the global, inclusive, not-for-profit crowd-funded Lunar Mission One, have signed a deal to send the first digital storage payload to the Moon. The payload will support Lunar Mission One's 'Footsteps on the Moon' campaign, launched earlier today, which invites millions of people to include their footsteps – in addition to images, video and music – in a digital archive of human life that will be placed on the moon during Astrobotic's first lunar mission.
"The partnership with Lunar Mission One is an exciting opportunity for individuals to store memorable information on the surface of the Moon," says John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic. "This is the first step in creating an archive of human civilization beyond Earth orbit."
David Iron, CEO of Lunar Missions Ltd and the founder of Lunar Mission One says, "It was an easy choice to partner with Astrobotic, a global leader in commercial lunar capability. This deal allows us to offer an exciting new way to connect our supporters to the Moon during the early phase of Lunar Mission One's development. We look forward to unveiling those plans very soon."
Lunar Mission One is the latest addition to Astrobotic's mission one manifest, and will be the first payload to enable a digital archive on the Moon.
About Astrobotic:
Astrobotic Technology Inc. is a lunar logistics company that delivers payloads to the Moon for companies, governments, universities, nonprofits, and individuals. The company's spacecraft accommodates multiple customers on a single flight, offering lunar delivery at an industry-defining low price. Astrobotic partners with NASA through a Space Act Agreement under the Lunar CATALYST program, and has 21 prior and ongoing NASA contracts. The company has strong commercial partnerships, 8 delivery contracts, and dozens of customer negotiations for upcoming missions, and is pursuing the Google Lunar XPRIZE with partner Carnegie Mellon University. Astrobotic was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA.
About Lunar Mission One:
Lunar Mission One, initially funded by a highly successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014 has now completed its preparatory phase. As a result, it now has the teams in place to set up the mission, which will land at the as-yet unexplored lunar south pole in 2024. The payload will consist of scientific experiments including a rig capable of drilling up to 100m into the Moon's surface to enable analysis of the Lunar geology on a scale never attempted before. The (roughly 5cm diameter) borehole will then be used to deposit two archives; one compendium of life on Earth and one containing millions of private Digital Memory Boxes to give an epic picture of life on Earth in the 21st Century, to be re-discovered in the far, far future.