Commercial Lunar Landers

Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA initiative, launched in 2018, that contracts private companies to design, build and fly robotic landers carrying government and commercial payloads to the lunar surface, primarily near the south pole, rather than NASA developing and operating the spacecraft itself. The program extended earlier commercial partnership models, such as the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services arrangement used for cargo delivery to the International Space Station, into deep space, and similar privately funded lunar lander efforts have since been pursued outside CLPS as well, including missions financed and operated by companies in Israel and Japan. A commercial lunar lander in this class is built, owned and largely operated by its private developer rather than by a national space agency, even when it carries government funded instruments or rides a government selected launch vehicle.