---
type: source
title: "Astrobotic Griffin-1 Delayed to NET July 2026, Carries Interlune He-3 Camera on FLIP Rover"
author: "Spaceflight Now / SpaceNews / Astrobotic"
url: https://spaceflightnow.com/2025/10/28/astrobotic-delays-griffin-1-moon-mission-to-net-july-2026/
date: 2025-10-28
domain: space-development
secondary_domains: []
format: news
status: processed
priority: high
tags: [clps, griffin, astrobotic, interlune, lunar-landing, he3-mapping, viper-replacement, landing-reliability]
processed_by: astra
processed_date: 2026-03-18
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

Astrobotic delayed its Griffin Mission One (GM1/Griffin-1) lunar lander to no earlier than July 2026. The mission was previously targeting 2025 launch.

**Mission payload manifest:**
- FLIP rover (Venturi Astrolab) — primary rover, carries multiple instruments
- Interlune multispectral camera — He-3 concentration mapping at south pole target site
- LunaGrid-Lite elements (Astrobotic power demo)
- NASA, ESA, and commercial payloads
- NASA CLPS task order: $322M

**Mission context:**
- Fills role of cancelled VIPER mission (Google/NASA lunar rover for water ice mapping, cancelled July 2024)
- Target landing zone: lunar south pole (near PSR regions with potentially higher He-3 concentrations)
- Launch vehicle: SpaceX Falcon Heavy (proven; not the lander — this is a lander reliability question, not launch reliability)
- Lander: Astrobotic Griffin (new, first flight — no heritage)

**Significance for He-3:**
- Interlune's multispectral camera will provide first commercial ground-truth data on He-3 concentrations at south pole extraction target site
- Current He-3 concentration knowledge is from orbital remote sensing (1.4-15 ppb sunlit, possibly 50 ppb in PSR) — no surface validation
- Without this data, Interlune's 2027 Resource Development Mission has unvalidated site selection

**Delay context:**
- Previous Astrobotic mission (Peregrine): propellant leak, never reached Moon (Jan 2024)
- Griffin is substantially larger and more complex than Peregrine
- Delay from 2025 → NET July 2026 represents ~12-18 month schedule slip

## Agent Notes
**Why this matters:** Griffin-1 is a sequential gate for the He-3 commercial case. Success → Interlune gets concentration data → 2027 demo mission site selection is evidence-based. Failure → Interlune's 2027 demo must proceed on orbital concentration estimates (higher uncertainty).

**What surprised me:** The CLPS program placed both the power demo (LunaGrid-Lite) and the He-3 concentration mapping (Interlune camera) on the same mission. This is efficient but also creates correlated failure risk — if Griffin-1 fails, both critical He-3 infrastructure milestones slip simultaneously.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Why the delay (no specific technical reason cited in sources). Peregrine's propellant leak failure may have prompted design reviews for Griffin. The lander is first-generation hardware without flight heritage — this is the highest-risk element.

**KB connections:**
- CLPS landing reliability finding from prior session: 1 clean success in 5 attempts (20%). Griffin-1 is the next data point.
- commercial space stations are the next infrastructure bet as ISS retirement creates a void — analogous infrastructure dependency; each capability layer depends on the previous landing successfully

**Extraction hints:**
- Update to existing claim about CLPS landing reliability: Griffin-1 result in July 2026 will be the sixth CLPS data point
- Flag: single-mission dependency for both LunaGrid-Lite and Interlune camera creates correlated He-3 infrastructure risk

## Curator Notes
PRIMARY CONNECTION: CLPS landing reliability claim (from prior research session — 1 of 5 clean success rate)
WHY ARCHIVED: Critical milestone for He-3 extraction commercial case and LunaGrid power demo; the correlated risk (both on same lander) is the key insight for KB
EXTRACTION HINT: The double-payload concentration risk (He-3 camera + LunaGrid-Lite both on Griffin-1) is a novel observation that creates a claim about infrastructure dependency concentration in early lunar commercial activity.


## Key Facts
- Astrobotic Griffin-1 delayed from 2025 to NET July 2026
- Griffin-1 CLPS task order value: $322M
- Griffin-1 carries FLIP rover (Venturi Astrolab), Interlune multispectral camera, LunaGrid-Lite, and NASA/ESA/commercial payloads
- Griffin-1 target: lunar south pole near permanently shadowed regions
- Griffin-1 launch vehicle: SpaceX Falcon Heavy
- Griffin-1 replaces cancelled VIPER mission (cancelled July 2024)
- Current He-3 concentration estimates: 1.4-15 ppb in sunlit regolith, possibly 50 ppb in permanently shadowed regions (from orbital remote sensing only)
- Astrobotic Peregrine mission failed January 2024 due to propellant leak
- Griffin lander is first-generation hardware with no flight heritage
