Spacebit is British privately held company that develops space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions. Spacebit founded in 2014, is funded privately via Pavlo Tanasyuk himself, along with a couple of other private investors. The company is based in London, England. The company is fully funded through its first mission Spacebit Mission One. The first launch of its lunar rover, called the Asagumo, is expected to take place in July 2021 on a Vulcan Centaur rocket with the Peregrinelunar lander. A berth aboard the Peregrine Moon lander being launched by Astrobotic.. The first mission won't be an entire swarm, but a single rover sent up as a demonstration unit to prove out its technology.
History
Spacebit, founded in 2014, is funded privately via Tanasyuk himself, along with a couple of other private investors. This company is fully funded through its first mission, a berth aboard the Peregrine Moon lander being launched by Astrobotic in 2021. The first mission won't be an entire swarm, but a single rover sent up as a demonstration unit to prove out its technology. On 16 August 2018, Spacebit announced its collaboration with Goonhilly Earth Station, the UK satellite communications innovator and space gateway to develop the use of blockchain technology for space-based data applications and mission deployment. On September 2019, Spacebit announced the signing of an agreement to deliver the first UK lunar rover Asagumo on Astrobotic's upcoming mission in 2021 and named this "Spacebit mission one". “Our goal is to go there and see what is available there for all humanity to explore," said Spacebit CEO Pavlo Tanasyuk in a statement. "So we hope to find a stable temperature which will be suited for future human missions to the Moon," he added. "It is a rugged environment in the lava tubes so you can't really use wheels there – that was why we had to design these legs instead of wheels. It will spend up to 10 days on the Moon before going into the night and basically freezing forever." The Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency will be providing the technology that Spacebit will employ on both its deployer and the robot rover it's preparing for use on the Moon. This marks the first time that Latin American companies will participate in a mission to the lunar surface. On November 2019, the UAE also confirmed as an official testing location for new space technology of the Spacebit ‘Spider Moon Rover’,the smallest robotic Moon rover in the world with legs. In December 2019, the Asagumo lunar rover was presented in Japan during The 3rd International Moon Village Workshop & Symposium. Before the trip to Japan, the spider's name has been kept as a secret. Asagumo, translated as a "morning spider" and being a part of the Japanese mythology. The popular Japanese proverb says: "Morning spider brings fortune, night spider comes as a thief. Spacebit CEO Pavlo Tanasyuk was inspired by this belief when he heard the story during a visit to Japan.
In July 2017, Astrobotic announced an agreement with United Launch Alliance to launch their Peregrine lander aboard the Vulcan rocket. The Mission One is planned to be launched in July 2021. By May 2019, Astrobotic's first lunar lander mission, simply called Mission One, had 14 commercial payloads including small rovers from Hakuto, Team AngelicvM, and a larger rover from the Carnegie Mellon University named Andy that has a mass of 33 kg and is 103 cm tall. An unusual miniature rover called Asagumo is included, and it moves on four legs. It is a technological demonstrator and will travel a distance of at least. Other payloads aboard the lander is a library, in micro print on nickel, which will include Wikipedia contents and Long Now Foundation's Rosetta Project. In September 2019, Spacebit signed an agreement to deliver the first UK lunar rover Asagumo on Astrobotic's upcoming mission in 2021 and named this "Spacebit Mission One". The tiny, spider-like Asagumo robot will be the world's smallest robotic Moon rover – will crawl on the surface of the Moon to take Photographs and gather data. The Spacebit rover weighs just 1.3 kg and, instead of wheels, is equipped with four legs to walk the Moon's surface to collect the data from Lidar and other equipment. Spacebit hopes that because of its legs and tiny size, the robot will eventually be able to explore the "Lunar lava tubes". These are subsurface tunnels, believed to have been formed by ancient Basaltic Lava flows. Astrobotic's Peregrine lander will carry a maximum payload mass of during the Mission One, and it is planned to land on Lacus Mortis, a relatively flat plateau at 44°N 25°E, and operate for about 8 Earth days. The payload mass for the planned second mission is capped at, and the Mission Three and next missions will carry the full payload capacity of.
