PITTSBURGH – Lunar lander developer Astrobotic decided to sell Voyager Technologies so it can scale faster to meet the anticipated demands of NASA’s lunar base initiative.
Voyager announced on June 2 that it had reached an agreement to acquire Astrobotic for $162 million in cash and stock and $9 million in debt. The deal includes earn-out payments of up to an additional $129 million upon meeting performance milestones.
The announcement surprised many in the industry. Astrobotic is a 19-year-old company that did not rely on significant outside investment, instead choosing to bootstrap the company with customer contracts. This included NASA awards for the Peregrine lunar lander, launched in 2024, and its Griffin-1 lander, which the company unveiled on June 15, for launch later this year.
In an interview at the event, Astrobotic Chief Executive John Thornton said the decision to sell Voyager came after the company concluded it was the fastest way to scale the company to meet NASA’s needs after the agency announced its lunar base plans at the Ignition event in March.
“Fundamentally, we need to move fast,” he said. “With the Moon base coming up, we needed to do things at scale, and we needed a partner that could do that, and Voyager is exactly that.”
Selling Voyager would allow it to grow faster than taking on outside investment, he said. “The alternative route would have been to raise some money, maybe then try to do an IPO. That would probably take the full 18 months,” he said. “With the partnership with Voyager, we basically have access to the public markets when we’re closed. This gives us the ability to scale now.”
The acquisition was part of Voyager’s “strategic lunar initiative” announced earlier this year that also includes a very small investment in Max Space, a startup that is developing inflatable habitats that can be used as part of a lunar base.
“We’ve been a mapping space infrastructure company for several years,” Matt Magana, president of defense and national security at Voyager, said in an interview. He said what was attractive about Astrobotic was not only its lunar lander work, but also the development of other lunar infrastructure, especially power systems.
“Every time we mapped out which companies there were, which companies we thought could be a great partnership,” he said, “Astrobotic was in the center of that map every time.”
Neither Magana nor Thornton said which company initiated the discussions that led to the acquisition. “We both saw this as a real strong strategic partnership and an opportunity to meet this moment,” Thornton said.
“We’re ready to move very quickly. We’re ready to partner with people,” Magana said.
Voyager said Astrobotic will remain in Pittsburgh and become the center of Voyager’s overall lunar programs. Thornton said Astrobotic plans to expand its presence there.
“This will be a fundamental change for us as a business, for Astrobotic, because for 19 years we’ve basically been living contract by contract, and tying those contracts together into bigger things,” he said. “This is a fundamental game change for us, because now we can be strategic.”
He concluded, “With a Moon base this is exactly what we needed in this moment. The opportunities are abundant, and if we were not prepared to move at the pace that NASA requires, we would be left behind.” “This is the perfect partnership to meet this moment.”
