Firefly Aerospace Contracts Honeybee Robotics To Develop A Lunar Rover

On 24 March 2025, Firefly Aerospace took to its official blog to share details on a new contract with robot manufacturing firm Honeybee Robotics. The Blue Origin subsidiary that develops robots will now develop a lunar rover for Firefly’s coming exploration mission.

Firefly Aerospace To Explore The Moon’s Gruithuisen Domes With A Honeybee Robotics Rover

In the fourth quarter of 2024, NASA contracted Firefly Aerospace with the task of exploring the Gruithuisen Domes on the Moon’s nearside. This contract, worth over $179.6 million, calls for the delivery and operation of six NASA instruments in this region of the Moon.

Some of the instruments to be in use on this contract are the Firefly Blue Ghost lunar lander, the Elytra Dark orbital vehicle, and a lunar rover from Honeybee Robotics. The mission is expected to be ready by 2028 when it’ll launch to the Moon with the sole aim of learning more about the Gruithuisen Domes.

The lunar rover to be developed for this mission will feature certain tools necessary for investigating the surface composition of these domes. One of the major equipment that this robot will use is the NASA Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) suite.

Once this rover gets to the Moon it will navigate the southern edge of the Gruithuisen Dome heading for the recent impact crater. After successfully reaching the crater, the rover will head back to the Blue Ghost lander.

During this to-and-fro journey, the rover will collect data on various boulder targets at different solar illumination angles. With this data, scientists will be able to understand how various volcanic processes on the Moon fuelled the creation of these domes.

Firefly Aerospace and Honeybee Robotics Express Optimism Towards Mission

Following the awarding of this contract, officials from both Firefly Aerospace and Honeybee Robotics’ parent company Blue Origin, had a few things to say regarding the partnership. Both parties expressed a high level of optimism towards working together to achieve the common goal of better understanding the Moon’s Gruithuisen Domes.

Paul Ebertz, senior vice president of In-Space Systems, Blue Origin, says that Honeybee Robotics is “excited to support Firefly’s mission to the Gruithuisen Domes by providing surface mobility.” He also believes that with this contract, the Blue Origin robotic firm will be able to leave a mark on the advanced robotics industry.

Shea Ferring, Chief Technology Officer at Firefly Aerospace, also expresses confidence that this partnership will bear good fruit. He points out that both firms have previously worked on two successful payloads in the past.

These payloads are the Lunar PlanetVac and LISTER subsurface drill, which were aboard the Blue Ghost moon touchdown mission. Speaking on Honeybee Robotics, he adds that “their stellar team, robust rover solution, and flight-proven technologies” make them the best choice for this contract.