{"id":103381,"title":"Instinct - Lunar Landers as a Service","tagline":"lunar landers designed to launch as a regular LEO rideshares","body":"We are going to the Moon, without spending billions. Launching more often and from any rocket.\n\n### **TL;DR:**\n\nModern lunar landers are not designed for the realities of today's launch market, leading to infrequent and expensive flights. Instinct is building a lunar lander that can launch from anywhere, increasing flight cadence and decreasing cost.\n\n\u003chttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WG8NVonbOo\u003e\n\n### **The Problem:**\n\nDemand for the Moon is increasing, and modern landers rely on dedicated launches to the Moon that cost upwards of $100M and only fly once or twice a year. This means payload costs of $1.2M/kg and very limited availability of payload slots. Most potential lunar payloads are either stuck on Earth or never leave the concept stage.\n\n### **Our Solution:**\n\nInstinct's lunar lander is small enough to launch as a rideshare to Low Earth Orbit, enabling low-cost, high-cadence missions. From LEO, our lander makes its way to the Moon without the need for refueling or multiple stages, delivering 20kg of payload to the Moon at a cost per kg of less than half that of current providers.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=103381\u0026key=user_uploads/1741395/a31b9757-ea96-4f67-8e24-a31ef7bf474b)\n\n\nAt its core, our lunar lander relies on custom propulsion and visual navigation systems, which enable our unique architecture and most importantly are designed to keep vehicle mass as low as possible. This reduces launch cost and maximizes performance.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=103381\u0026key=user_uploads/1741395/6887996a-f7fc-4d07-a5ae-68e548ba6acf)\n\n### **Who We Are:**\n\nOur team brings years of experience working on space missions including NASA's IMAP, ESA's Solar Orbiter, and PhiSat-2.\n\nWe are super passionate about space exploration, and have also experienced firsthand the pains involved in developing lunar missions nowadays. We think getting to the Moon should be routine.\n\n### **What's Next:**\n\n* Integrated tests of our reaction control thrusters\n* Flight of our hopper test vehicle\n* A lot of testing\n* First lunar mission in Q4 2028\n\n### **Asks:**\n\n* Fly a payload to the Moon\\![ https://www.instinct-space.com/fly-with-us](https://www.instinct-space.com/fly-with-us)\n* Commercial/Government Intros\n* Join the team[ https://www.instinct-space.com/careers](https://www.instinct-space.com/careers)","slug":"QtR-instinct-lunar-landers-as-a-service","created_at":"2026-06-17T14:05:35.501Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T07:19:31.168Z","total_vote_count":7,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/QtR-instinct-lunar-landers-as-a-service","share_image_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/media/?type=post\u0026id=103381\u0026key=user_uploads/1741395/a31b9757-ea96-4f67-8e24-a31ef7bf474b","company":{"id":30347,"name":"Instinct","slug":"instinct","url":"https://www.instinct-space.com/","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/4bb840258f778d8499065a3377b1461a88ad66ed.png","batch":"Winter 2025","industry":"Industrials","tags":["Hard Tech","Space Exploration"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/30347"}}