Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine lunar lander will become the first mission to fly under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract when it takes off on ULA's Vulcan. The launch is set for liftoff during a 45-minute window that opens at 2:18 a.m. Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 41.

Limited window backups are available early Tuesday-Thursday before further delays would force a push to Jan. 23. Space Launch Delta 45's weather squadron forecasts an 85% chance for good launch conditions, which drops to 40% in the event of a 24-hour delay.

Astrobotic's flight is the first of nine lunar CLPS missions already awarded with the goal that NASA would become a customer of companies amid a growing commercial lunar economy.

"Spaceflight is hard and some very unforgiving business. Even small mistakes can have huge consequences. NASA leadership is aware of the risks and has accepted that some of these missions might not succeed," said Joel Kearns, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration in the Science Mission Directorate.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines is set to fly what would the second CLPS mission as early as February on a SpaceX Falcon 9 while Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines have second flights along with Texas-based Firefly Aerospace's first flight all on NASA's launch schedule before the end of 2024.