It was founded in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker and his associates with the goal of winning the Google Lunar X Prize.

The launch carried the company's Peregrine lunar lander on board the first flight of the Vulcan Centaur rocket from Florida's Space Force Station LC-41.

[9] The next year, Astrobotic began to receive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding from NASA totaling over US$795,000 to investigate prospecting for lunar resources,[10] which eventually led to a concept called Polar Excavator.

[11] Astrobotic's proposal "Technologies Enabling Exploration of Skylights, Lava Tubes, and Caves" was a Phase I selection for NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC).

[18] Airbus Defence and Space signed a memorandum of understanding to provide engineering support for Astrobotic as it refines the lander's design.

[23][24] On September 25, 2019, John Thornton of Astrobotic was named CEO of the Year by the Pittsburgh Technology Council at the 23rd annual Tech50 awards ceremony.

[25][26] On January 24, 2021, MrBeast, a YouTuber, said that he would place a payload on the Peregrine lander: a hard drive containing large numbers of digital image files submitted by anyone who contributed US$10 via his online store.

[31] The Peregrine lander was launched on January 8, 2024, from Florida's Space Force Station LC-41, aboard the maiden flight of Vulcan Centaur.

[57] VIPER was to investigate permanently shadowed regions of craters located in the Moon's south pole, specifically for potential deposits of water ice that could be used as resources for future crewed missions.

[60][61][62] The agency still plans to support the Griffin lander to arrive on the moon in fall of 2025, though with a mass simulator in place of the VIPER rover.

The idea is equivalent to that of the successful CubeSat format, with a standardized architecture to assemble new units that will be all compatible, modular, and inexpensive.

[65] The rover class concept is being developed by Astrobotic Technology in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, and it is partly funded by NASA awards.