Is CLPS 2.0 in the cards?

CLPS 2.0? More Lunar Landers and Payloads coming soon! But, how has the initial CLPS initiative gone, and what do we stand to gain by continuing it forward?

Yesterday, key minds in the Aero/Space industry, particularly focused in the realm of the Moon, gathered to testify and answer questions by the United States Space & Aeronautics Subcommittee. The topic of interest was the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Initiative. 

Witnesses ✍ 

Dr. Nicola Fox, Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Dr. Brett Denevi, Principal Staff Scientist, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

John Thornton, Chief Executive Officer, Astrobotic

Stephen Altemus, President and CEO, Intuitive Machines

Jason Kim, Chief Executive Officer, Firefly Aerospace

Question themes asked by the Committee ❔ 

• How has this initiative been executed thus far? 

• In what ways could it be made better in the future?

• What benefit does this initiative really bring to the United States?

Answers to these questions covered the partial successes by Intuitive Machines, full successful Blue Ghost Mission 1 by Firefly, and the lessons learned across all the Witnesses. There was a general push by the commercial witnesses to have any idea of CLPS 2.0 be based around batch/multi order options, particularly to mitigate known Aero/Space supply chain woes. On top of this was the ever present discussion on the efficacy of a program like this compared to Apollo and other countries capabilities. CLPS reaches broadly and deeply across the industry and is encouraged to continue, and expand.

Are you a company, or individual, that designs, supplies, integrates, or participates within or towards CLPS programs? Wanting to stay up to date on how this information plays out into future contracts opportunities and innovations in the Space industry? Follow us at Telemetry Today on LinkedIn and X, or click on our site to get in contact with us for business opportunities! A link to the video of the full hearing can be found here.