Lunar Mission OB1
"Each lunar mission targets a landing ellipse in a region of interest based on the mission and payload requirements. For OB1, we are aiming for the lunar south pole"
Orbit Beyond plans to launch a south-polar lander in the 2029/2030 window, delivering up to 300 kg of customer payloads to terrain adjacent to permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). The mission is designed for day–night–day operations and will qualify three on-surface services for follow-on campaigns: Power-as-a-Service (night-survival power delivery and logging), Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) (on-surface storage, edge processing, prioritized store-and-forward), and a 4G/LTE surface network (coverage/throughput/latency performance).
On the surface, the lander and hosted instruments will collect high-value environmental and geotechnical datasets—illumination/thermal cycles, regolith mechanics, dust/plume transport, RF environment, radiation dosimetry, volatile/PSR reconnaissance—and provide standard mechanical/electrical/data interfaces for rapid payload commissioning. The mission will also assess helium presence at the planned sample-return site through in-situ assays (e.g., thermal-release tests with mass-spectrometric analysis) to ground-truth He-related proxies for the follow-on sample-return campaign.
A dual-orbiter segment augments the surface mission. Orbiter-1 (polar mapper) will perform mineral mapping and terrain/context imaging using multispectral/thermal-IR instruments and a laser altimeter to refine landing-zone and traverse planning. Orbiter-2 will provide continuous relay for the surface LTE/DaaS network and may host complementary sensors (e.g., radar/altimetry) to improve PSR/volatile models. Together, surface and orbital data produce standardized products and service-qualification reports (power delivery metrics, LTE coverage maps, DaaS data-throughput gains), establishing a repeatable blueprint for subsequent missions—including PSR science, resource prospecting, and sample return.
OrbitBeyond’s Market Leading Lunar Lander
Space industry experts recognise OrbitBeyond’s proprietary Lunar Landing Vehicle (LLV) as a best in-class, comprising a number of distinct advantages over competing lunar landers. OrbitBeyond’s lunar landers are capable of supporting payload delivery to locations ranging from the lunar equator to the poles. OrbitBeyond’s precision descent and landing guidance, including Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) and Hazard Detection and Avoidance (HDA), is considered one of the most robust systems for planetary landing. OrbitBeyond’s LLV is configured modular and scalable to accommodate payloads ranging from 100 kg to 500 kg to the lunar surface. It also uses flight heritage systems of TRL 7+, which significantly lowers technical, schedule and financial risk.
Payload Integration
OrbitBeyond works with payload customers to integrate their payloads onto a single OrbitBeyond lunar lander. Integration takes place at OrbitBeyond’s facility, where payloads are accepted and integrated into the lunar lander - ahead of the scheduled launch date. Payloads are provided with power and data via the lunar lander for the during of the transit to the Moon and during their time on the lunar surface.
Broad Mission Plan
Lunar Mission OB1 will focus on supporting the commercial and scientific activities on the lunar surface, of the customer’s whose payloads we will be transporting. This will include rover-based activities, operating in a harsh lunar environment and the collection and return samples from the lunar surface. OrbitBeyond’s own payloads will be deployed during the OB1 mission and are currently planned to include a lunar 5g network and edge computing solutions.