On October 30, 2008, Odyssey Moon Ventures LLC signed a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement with NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) in Silicon Valley to purchase technical support and existing technology from NASA, thus greatly reducing both the cost and schedule of its first mission. The baseline Odyssey-1 (M-1) spacecraft and lander system will be derived from proven core spaceflight systems developed by NASA and the United States Strategic Defense Initiative. This core design will be enhanced by innovative design and mission parameters introduced by Odyssey Moon, enabling it to carry approximately 50 kilograms of net payload to the lunar surface.

NASA ARC is leading efforts to develop small, low cost spacecrafts to deliver scientifically and technically useful payloads to the Moon. As part of that effort, NASA ARC’s Small Spacecraft Division designed a Common Spacecraft Bus (CSB) and built a test bed, the Hover Test Vehicle (HTV), for further development of a prototype lunar orbiter based on the CSB design. Further, NASA ARC built the unique Hover Test Facility (HTF) to allow integrated flight-testing of small spacecrafts in a safe and instrumented environment. The CSB was selected by NASA as the baseline for a 2012 lunar orbiter mission called the Lunar Atmospheric Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE).

The CSB-based “Odyssey” lunar lander is based on proven technologies and “off-the-shelf” hardware, including a flight proven, highly reliable propulsion system developed by the Department of Defense at great expense as part of the US Strategic Defense Initiative. This propulsion system is compact and lightweight allowing the CSB-based lander to increase its marketable payload capacity while keeping lander volume and mass low to hold down launch costs.