Draper and NASA terminate CLPS lunar lander task order after delays
Draper · ispace · NASA
NASA and Draper mutually ended the CP-12 lunar lander task order after years of schedule slips, ispace-U.S. said.
what happened
NASA and Draper mutually agreed to terminate the CLPS CP-12 task order for a far-side lunar lander, ispace-U.S. said in a July 15 statement; ispace-U.S. had served as Draper's subcontractor building the lander itself since July 2022. Per SpaceNews, the task order was valued at $73 million, of which NASA had already paid Draper $43 million for completed milestones, and NASA said future milestones were projected to take years, pushing a landing to 2030 or 2031 after repeated redesigns, most recently a March engine change and a merger of ispace's US and Japanese lander lines.
why it matters
The termination trims NASA's roster of CLPS lunar-delivery providers just as the agency prepares a CLPS 2.0 award round, and shifts near-term lunar-delivery risk toward providers still on schedule. ispace-U.S. CEO Elizabeth Kryst said the company remains focused on 'high-quality, high-frequency and low-cost transportation services to the lunar surface for the American market,' signaling it intends to keep bidding for NASA lunar contracts despite losing this one.
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Draper, ispace, NASA
- Category
- science
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 4 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-07-15
- Published
- 2026-07-18 05:27 UTC