Adelaide space company Fleet Space Technologies is preparing to send its SPIDER seismic payload to the far side of the Moon aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 2, a flight expected no earlier than December 2026, with some listings now pointing to 2027.
If it lands, SPIDER is being billed as the first Australian seismic technology on the lunar surface. The mission also shows how a company built on mineral exploration on Earth is applying the same technology to one of the biggest questions in lunar exploration: where to find water ice that future missions could use.
How it works
Fleet Space pairs a constellation of small satellites with seismic sensors on the ground. The sensors record natural vibrations moving through the earth, and AI turns that data into a 3D picture of what lies underneath. Its ExoSphere platform has been used by Rio Tinto on a lithium project in Argentina and by Barrick on copper exploration, and Fleet pitches it as much faster than traditional exploration surveys.
SPIDER, short for Seismic Payload for Interplanetary Discovery, Exploration and Research, is the lunar version. It will stay tethered to the Blue Ghost lander and use ambient noise to map the subsurface, examining the Moon’s mineral makeup and searching for water ice. “Technologies like SPIDER will become key enablers of our long-term efforts to sustain life on the Moon and beyond,” co-founder and chief exploration officer Matt Pearson told Business News Australia.
The mission
Blue Ghost Mission 2 flies under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program and will also carry a NASA radio telescope and a European Space Agency communications satellite for lunar orbit. The Australian Space Agency funded SPIDER through a $4 million contract under its Moon to Mars program.
The money
Fleet Space raised a $150 million Series D in December 2024, led by Teachers’ Venture Growth, the late stage venture arm of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. The round valued the company at about $800 million, up from $350 million after its Series C, InDaily reported. Existing investors Blackbird, Hostplus and Horizons Ventures also took part.
The company is led by co-founder and chief executive Flavia Tata Nardini, and had more than 130 staff worldwide at the time of the raise, with expansion into the US, Canada, Chile and Luxembourg.
Jack’s take
This is the kind of company Australia should be louder about. It earns real revenue from mining first, then points the same technology at the Moon. If SPIDER gets down safely on the far side, that is a milestone the whole country can point to.