Skip to content

Masten Space Systems, Inc. (acquired by Astrobotic 2022)

Location: Mojave, CA (Mojave Air and Space Port)
Type: Industry (startup, bankrupt 2022 → acquired)
FO Projects: 94201
Outcome Category: Technology absorbed (Astrobotic acquisition) + CLPS contract cancelled
Confidence: Confirmed
Last updated: Session 87, 2026-04-07

Summary

Masten Space Systems developed VTVL (Vertical Takeoff, Vertical Landing) technology for lunar landing applications. Their FO Tipping Point project produced the M10A Broadsword — an additively manufactured LOX/methane engine that achieved successful 10-second combustion testing in December 2019, confirmed by an AFRL WPAFB collaboration. Masten filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy July 28, 2022, three months after receiving a $66.13M CLPS contract that proved too large to execute. Astrobotic acquired their assets for $4.5M in September 2022. The M10A engine technology, VTVL platform, and related IP now live inside Astrobotic as their Propulsion and Test Department.

Key insight: The CLPS contract ($66.13M) was Masten's undoing, not its success. It scaled the company beyond its capacity and accelerated its collapse. The valuable technical output was the M10A engine and VTVL test heritage, now inside Astrobotic.

Timeline:

  • 2004: Masten Space Systems founded, Mojave CA
  • 2009: Army SBIR Phase I ($97K) — early propulsion research
  • 2010: NASA CRuSR contract ($822K) — commercial reusable suborbital research
  • 2016: NASA SBIR Phase I ($121K) — preliminary M10A LOX/methane engine concept
  • 2017: FO Tipping Point 94201 ($2.0M) — M10A full-scale AM thrust chamber, TRL4→7
  • 2019: Successful 10-second steady-state combustion test (December 10, 2019) with AFRL WPAFB
  • 2020: CLPS award ($66.13M) to deliver payloads to lunar south pole — XL-1 lander, 8 payloads
  • 2020–2022: Multiple parallel NASA contracts for cratering physics, lunar night survival, plume effects, HLS
  • 2021: FO reusable suborbital vehicle contract ($4.4M) — terrestrial landing tech demo
  • 2021: Fuel cell development ($1.58M) — MOWS (Metal Oxidation Warming System)
  • July 28, 2022: Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed; SpaceX largest creditor ($4.6M unsecured)
  • September 8, 2022: Astrobotic acquires Masten assets for $4.5M (court approved)
  • Post-acquisition: Masten now operates as Astrobotic's Propulsion and Test Department (Mojave CA)
  • CLPS contract: Cancelled; payloads redistributed to other CLPS contractors

TechPort Record: 94201

  • Title: Maturing the M10A 25,000lbf LOX/Methane Broadsword Engine
  • Program: Flight Opportunities (Tipping Point 2017)
  • Period: 2017-06-01 – 2020-02-01
  • TRL: 4 → 7 (target 7)
  • PI: Matthew Kuhns
  • Lead Org: Masten Space Systems, Inc.
  • Description: Full-scale additively manufactured aluminum thrust chamber assembly for 25,000 lbf LOX/LCH4 dual expander propulsion system. Additive manufacturing + expander cycle = lower cost, high performance, reusable. Target: next-generation reusable launch vehicles.
  • Library items:
  • AFRL/Masten/NASA methane engine test press release — confirms December 2019 test success
  • NASA project website link
  • Note: No outcome records. Outcome story is in the corporate trajectory, not TechPort fields.

USASpending Awards

Award ID Agency Amount Period Purpose
80JSC020F0262 NASA $66.13M 2020–2024 CLPS: end-to-end lunar payload delivery (XL-1) — CANCELLED
80AFRC21C0006 NASA $4.40M 2021–2024 FO: reusable suborbital vehicle for landing tech terrestrial demo
NND17AP10C NASA $2.00M 2017–2020 FO Tipping Point: M10A thrust chamber (=FO 94201)
80AFRC21C0009 NASA $1.58M 2021–2023 MOWS fuel cell development
NND15AP08T NASA $1.38M 2015–2017 SpaceLoft-type services
80AFRC17F0090 NASA $898K 2017–2019 FO payload expansion on Xodiac vehicle
NNA10DF35P NASA $822K 2010–2014 CRuSR: commercial reusable suborbital research
80NSSC20C0220 NASA $750K 2020–2022 Deep cratering physics (plume effects modeling)
80NSSC19C0227 NASA $750K 2019–2022 PERMIAM: engineered porosity in AM structures
80NSSC20C0177 NASA $703K 2020–2023 MOWS Phase II: surviving lunar night
NNA14AC29T NASA $660K 2014–2015 FO payload integration: FOALS (JPL) on Xodiac
NND15AP01T NASA $558K 2015 Flight integration services
NNA14AA53T NASA $555K 2014–2016 AAS closed-loop RLV flight
80MSFC19C0031 NASA $411K 2019–2020 HLS Masten Descent Element concept study
NND14AP11T NASA $346K 2014–2015 Flyover mapping (CMU)
80NSSC21C0068 NASA $125K 2021–2022 Embedded fiber-optic sensing for sails
80NSSC18P2230 NASA $124K 2018–2019 SBIR: small LV propulsion systems
80NSSC19C0603 NASA $123K 2019–2020 Cratering physics modeling
80NSSC19C0508 NASA $123K 2019–2020 MOWS Phase I
NNX16CM43P NASA $121K 2016 SBIR Phase I: M10A concept
W31P4Q09C0297 Army $97K 2009 Army SBIR Phase I
80NSSC20C0230 NASA $149K 2020–2021 Hot gas thruster for PSI tile samples

Total NASA+DoD tracked (page 1): ~$82M
Note: $66.13M CLPS contract cancelled at bankruptcy. Excluding CLPS: ~$16M in active awards.

Downstream Impact Chain

Masten founded 2004 — VTVL test platform (Xombie, Xodiac) for payload hosting
         ↓
FO hosting revenues: ~$2M in payload flight contracts on Xodiac
         ↓
FO Tipping Point 94201 (2017-2020): M10A LOX/methane engine, TRL4→7
  AFRL WPAFB co-test: December 10, 2019 — 10s steady-state combustion confirmed
  Target: reusable lander propulsion
         ↓
CLPS award (April 2020): $66.13M — XL-1 lunar south pole delivery
  [Parallel: MOWS, plume research, HLS study — breadth of R&D]
         ↓
CLPS overrun → bankruptcy (July 28, 2022)
  SpaceX largest creditor ($4.6M)
         ↓
Astrobotic acquisition (September 8, 2022): $4.5M for all assets
  Assets include: VTVL platform, M10A technology, Mojave facility
         ↓
Masten = Astrobotic Propulsion and Test Department (Mojave CA)
  M10A engine technology → dormant IP (not used on Griffin or Xogdor)
  Xodiac VTVL testbed: 176 flights → lost May 28, 2025
         ↓
$17.5M new contracts (Dec 2025): Xodiac-C, Xodiac-B, Xogdor successors
  Andoya Spaceport (Norway) launch agreement (Sep 2025)

Assessment

The FO M10A project (94201) represents genuine TRL advancement (4→7) in a needed technology — LOX/methane propulsion for lunar landing. The AFRL collaboration and confirmed combustion test show real technical achievement. However:

  1. CLPS contract was the pivot point: Masten received $66.13M to actually land on the Moon, which was beyond their organizational capacity. This is a scaling failure, not a technology failure.
  2. Technology survived: The M10A engine and VTVL knowledge are inside Astrobotic. The technology infused into the broader lunar landing ecosystem via acquisition.
  3. FO investment recovered: The M10A TRL4→7 work ($2M) produced technology that is now part of Astrobotic's capability base. The intellectual capital survived the bankruptcy.
  4. Astrobotic double-entry: Both Astrobotic (FO project 91338, canceled) and Masten (FO project 94201) appear in this KB, and now Astrobotic owns Masten's work. The companies are interlinked.

Outcome type: Technology absorbed by Astrobotic via acquisition. Not a clean success or failure — the technology lives on but the company that built it does not.

Second FO Project: DRAG FLAPs [91345]

FO Project: 91345
Period: 2016-08-01 – 2017-08-31
TRL: 4 → 5
PI: Joey Oberholtzer
Outcome record: "Advanced To | 2014-08-01 | partner: Other" — date anomaly (2014 predates 2016 start by 2 years; this is a TechPort data entry error, same class as MSNW and SVSC cases)

What was tested: Deployable Rigid Adjustable Guided Final Landing Approach Pinions (DRAG FLAPs) — aerodynamic decelerators for Masten's VTVL reusable vehicles. Designed to deploy during descent and provide attitude control/deceleration. Drop tests from NSC's SBS balloon platform at 35 km altitude using scale models.

Outcome assessment: This is a minor dead end. The project ran for only one year (2016-2017), achieved TRL4→5, and Masten went bankrupt in 2022. DRAG FLAPs are not mentioned in any Astrobotic acquisition documentation. The technology was superseded by Masten's focus on the M10A engine and VTVL thrust-vector-controlled descent.

A Flickr photo of the DRAG FLAPs test article exists (Flickr link in TechPort library) — visual documentation only.

Verdict: Dead end. DRAG FLAPs were a secondary aerodynamic decelerator concept that Masten developed in parallel with their primary thrust-vector VTVL approach. The company's bankruptcy and Astrobotic's focus on propulsion (not aerodynamic decelerators) means this thread ended.

Session 35 Updates

Mojave Facility & Xodiac

The Mojave Air and Space Port facility is still operating as Astrobotic's Propulsion and Test Department. David Masten remained as Chief Engineer.

Xodiac VTVL testbed flew customer campaigns until May 28, 2025 (176th flight), when it was lost. The vehicle detected an anomalous condition mid-flight, commanded flight termination, and was destroyed on impact. No injuries; infrastructure undamaged.

$17.5M in new contracts (Dec 2025) fund three successor vehicles: - Xodiac-C: $1.6M NASA SBIR Phase 3; EDL tech testing; service entry late 2026 - Xodiac-B: $1.9M SBIR from USAF/AFRL; service entry 2027 - Xogdor: $14M NASA SBIR Phase 3; suborbital (100+ km), turbopump-fed LOX/LCH₄ engine (6,000 lbf); service entry 2028

Astrobotic also signed a launch agreement with Andoya Spaceport in Norway (Sep 2025) for international Xodiac operations.

M10A Broadsword Engine — Dormant

No evidence of active development post-acquisition. Griffin-1 uses Frontier Aerospace 700-lbf engines, not Broadsword. Xogdor uses a different 6,000 lbf turbopump-fed engine. The Broadsword appears to be dormant IP — no press releases, test campaigns, or contract references since acquisition.

Griffin-1 Status

Griffin-1 targets launch NET July 2026 on Falcon Heavy. - VIPER canceled July 2024 due to cost overruns (>$450M). NASA awarded $190M to Blue Origin to fly VIPER on Blue Moon Mk1-2. - New primary payload: Venturi Astrolab's FLEX (Flexible Lunar Innovation Platform) rover (500 kg), plus CubeRover, BEACON, and others. - Landing site: Nobile region, lunar south pole. - As of Oct 2025: structural build nearing full integration; engine qualification underway.

XL-1 Payload Redistribution

Of the 8 original XL-1 CLPS payloads: - MoonRanger → reassigned to Blue Ghost Mission 4 (Firefly, ~2029, Haworth Crater) - Heimdall → reassigned to Blue Ghost Mission 3 (Firefly, ~2028, Gruithuisen Domes) - MSolo → a version flew on IM-2 Athena (Feb 2025) as part of PRIME-1 - NIRVSS → part of VIPER instrument suite → reassigned with VIPER to Blue Origin Blue Moon - L-CIRiS, LETS, SAMPLR, LRA → no confirmed reassignment as of early 2026

Open Threads

  • ~~M10A actively developed?~~ Resolved Session 35: Dormant. Not used on Griffin or Xogdor.
  • ~~CLPS payloads?~~ Partially resolved Session 35: MoonRanger + Heimdall confirmed reassigned. 4 instruments still unconfirmed.
  • ~~MOWS influence on Griffin?~~ No evidence found. Likely did not transfer post-bankruptcy.
  • OPEN: Xogdor Block 1B development — $14M NASA SBIR Phase III (awarded Dec 19, 2025) for 100+ km suborbital (200 kg payload, multiple flights/week). Track toward 2028 service entry.
  • OPEN: Andøya Spaceport operations — term sheet only; full agreement pending. Will use Xodiac-C/B, not original Xodiac.
  • OPEN: Griffin-1 — NET July 2026 (Falcon Heavy, LC-39A). COPV tank installation pending, then environmental acceptance testing. FLIP rover + CubeRover (LunaGrid-Lite) + BEACON rover as payloads.
  • OPEN: Peregrine investigation CLOSED Aug 2024. PCV2 root cause confirmed.

Session 57 Reconfirmation

Web search (Apr 7, 2026) confirms: - Griffin-1: Still targeting NET July 2026. No new public updates beyond Oct 2025 status. Integration proceeding — COPV propellant tanks being installed, after which environmental acceptance testing follows. - Xodiac successors: Xodiac-C (late 2026), Xodiac-B (2027), Xogdor Block 1B (2028) timelines unchanged. No new contract announcements. - M10A Broadsword: Still dormant. No mentions in any Astrobotic communications. - Assessment unchanged. Page stable — next meaningful update likely when Griffin-1 launches or Xodiac-C enters service.

Session 87 Reconfirmation

Web search (Apr 7, 2026) confirms: - Griffin-1: Still NET July 2026 on Falcon Heavy (LC-39A). COPV tanks are the bottleneck; once installed, environmental acceptance testing follows. Primary payload is now called FLIP (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform) — Astrolab's rover, formally announced Jan 31, 2025. Payloads: FLIP rover, CubeRover (LunaGrid-Lite), BEACON rover, plus secondary payloads. - Xodiac-C/B/Xogdor: All three contracts formally awarded December 19, 2025 as a $17.5M package. Design/build phase — no flight tests yet. Timelines unchanged: Xodiac-C late 2026, Xodiac-B 2027, Xogdor 2028. - Andøya Spaceport: Still term sheet only. Full launch site agreement not yet reported signed. European Xodiac campaigns will use new-generation vehicles. - M10A Broadsword: Still dormant. No reactivation evidence. Xogdor uses a different smaller engine. - Peregrine investigation: Formally closed August 2024. Root cause: Pressure Control Valve 2 (PCV2) failed to fully reseat after launch vibrations. Post-mission report published by independent review board (Chair: Dr. John Horack, Ohio State). - New contract: Thales Alenia Space (Italy) awarded Astrobotic a contract (Mar 2026) to build wheels for Italy's planned driveable lunar habitat — value undisclosed. - Astrobotic corporate: Total contract portfolio cited at over $600M; 275 employees. No new equity funding rounds. Growth is contract-revenue-driven. - Assessment: MINOR UPDATE. Griffin-1 approaching (July 2026). FLIP rover name correction is cosmetic. Italian wheel contract is new but small. Next meaningful update: Griffin-1 launch or Xodiac-C first flight.

Sources

  • TechPort 94201 (live API, 2026-04-05)
  • USASpending.gov awards for Masten Space Systems Inc (queried 2026-04-05)
  • Web search: Masten bankruptcy and Astrobotic acquisition (2026-04-05, refreshed Session 35)
  • SpaceNews: "Astrobotic secures contracts for suborbital vehicle development" (Dec 2025)
  • Astrobotic: "Xodiac's 176th Flight Update" (May 2025)
  • SpaceNews: "Astrobotic delays Griffin-1 lander mission to mid-2026" (Oct 2025)
  • Astrobotic: "Astrolab's FLIP Rover Joins Astrobotic's Griffin-1" (Jan 2025)