The verified answer
As of Oct 2026, DEPLOY verifies Honeybee Robotics: 1 model. 6 sources back the record.
CategorySpace
Overview
Honeybee Robotics, LLC is an American space robotics company headquartered in Longmont, Colorado, with additional facilities in Altadena, California and Greenbelt, Maryland. Founded in 1983 by Steve Gorevan and Chris Chapman, the company designs and builds robotic drilling, sampling, and manipulation systems for planetary exploration, with hardware on every successful NASA Mars rover mission since Spirit and Opportunity.
The company built the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) on the Mars Exploration Rovers, the Sample Manipulation System and Dust Removal Tool on Curiosity, and the Phoenix Scoop on the 2008 Phoenix Lander. Acquired by Ensign-Bickford Industries in 2017, then sold to Blue Origin in January 2022, Honeybee is now a Blue Origin subsidiary with ~284 employees and ~$75M revenue.
The company has launched over 3,000 components and systems to space, with current missions including NASA's VIPER lunar rover, Mars Sample Return, JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX), and Dragonfly to Titan.
Verified record
- Verified deployments
- None on file
- Active incidents
- None on file
Key facts
Parent
HQ
Founded
Mars heritage
Products
NASA missions
Incidents
Blue Origin subsidiary
Planetary robotics portfolio
Data & sources
Patent documents
4
Web sources
2
6 sources backing this record.View all →
Models (1)
View all models →Partnerships
Every company Honeybee Robotics has built with, alongside the ones only announced in a press release.
Most-frequent partners
- 1NASA2× joint
- 2Firefly Aerospace1× joint1 total
- 3NASA1× joint3 total
Most recent
- with Firefly Aerospaceoperating
- with NASAoperating
- Honeybee Robotics x NASA2010-01-01with NASAoperating
Honeybee Robotics on the deployment map
View the global mapHoneybee Robotics has no verified deployments on the DEPLOY registry yet. Explore the deployment map by place and type.
No verified deployments for Honeybee Robotics on the DEPLOY record yet. Track Honeybee Robotics to know the moment the first one is verified.
Relationships
Current leadership (3)
- Chris Chapman Co-founderreported, not verified
- Steve Gorevan Co-founderreported, not verified
- Kris Zacny VP of Exploration Systemssecondary-verified
Founders (2)
- Steve Gorevancofounderno longer at company
- Chris Chapmancofounderno longer at company
Safety record
No incidents on record for Honeybee Robotics.
Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.
Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →
Recent coverage
Honeybee Robotics in third-party press
Peer companies
- Impulse Space6 models
- AstroForge3 models
- Astrobotic Technology3 models
- China National Space Administration3 models
- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory3 models
- SpaceX3 models
Financial state
- Employees
- 284
- Reporting basis
- aggregator_estimate
- Lifecycle stage
- acquired
- Counterparty risk class
- low
Each numeric field carries its own basis marker. Aggregators report a number; this surface preserves the source class so verification depth travels with the value.
Partnerships
3 total · 3 operating
Every company Honeybee Robotics has built with, alongside the ones only announced in a press release.
Most recent
- with Firefly Aerospaceoperating
- with NASAoperating
- Honeybee Robotics x NASA2010-01-01with NASAoperating
Most-frequent partners
- 1NASA2× joint
- 2Firefly Aerospace1× joint1 total
- 3NASA1× joint3 total
All 3 partnerships
open in the atlas →- deployment2025-03-24operating
- deployment2022-12-01operating
- Honeybee Robotics x NASAwithNASAdevelopment2010-01-01operating
Funding rounds (1)
- Acquired2022-01-24
Investors: Blue Origin (lead)
Patent estate (4)
- US11833674B2usptograntedgranted 2023-12-05assignee
- EP2099672A2epopendingassignee
- US20180148197A1usptopendingassignee
- US20180251240A1usptopendingassignee
Timeline
Every recorded move in Honeybee Robotics’s history, most recent first: funding rounds, partnerships, acquisitions, supply-chain starts, key hires, and press.
PartnershipHoneybee Robotics x Firefly Aerospace (Gruithuisen Domes Lunar Rover)
2025-03-24Firefly Aerospace contracted Honeybee Robotics to provide the lunar rover for NASA's task order to explore the Gruithuisen Domes on the Moon's near side in 2028. The rover will carry NASA's Lunar-VISE instruments to investigate the subsurface composition of the Gruithuisen Gamma Dome, deployed by Firefly's Blue Ghost lander.
PartnershipHoneybee Robotics x NASA (Mars Sample Return)
2022-12-01NASA awarded Honeybee Robotics a contract to provide several systems for the Mars Sample Return mission, including the Capture, Containment, and Retrieval System (CCRS), Earth Entry System (EES), and Spin Eject Mechanism (SEM). This builds on Honeybee's history of building hardware for every successful NASA Mars rover mission.
Funding roundAcquired funding round
2022-01-24Acquired
PartnershipHoneybee Robotics x NASA
2010-01-01Honeybee Robotics developed drilling, sampling, and manipulation systems for NASA Mars rover missions including the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. The company's Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) was used on the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
Recent activity
Every change to this record is dated, sourced, and independently verified where marked.
- Record createdJun 27, 2026
Added to the verified registry
Sources (2)
Common questions
What is Honeybee Robotics?
What does Honeybee Robotics make?
Is Honeybee Robotics publicly traded?
Who competes with Honeybee Robotics?
Who is the CEO of Honeybee Robotics?
How can I invest in Honeybee Robotics?
Where is Honeybee Robotics headquartered?
Who owns Honeybee Robotics?
Where does Honeybee Robotics operate robots?
Is Honeybee Robotics a top robotics company?
Is Honeybee Robotics safe?
Methodology: Verified · 2 sources (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-09-29
Verification posture
Verified
Low confidence
Review state
Stable
Last reviewed 2026-09-29
Sources by quality tier
- 2
- unclassified
- Unclassified source
The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.
Methodology surface for Honeybee Robotics.Peer companies
- Impulse Space6 models
- AstroForge3 models
- Astrobotic Technology3 models
- China National Space Administration3 models
- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory3 models
- SpaceX3 models
In the press
Recent coverage mentioning Honeybee Robotics from third-party publications. Automatically surfaced; not part of the verified registry record.
Firefly Aerospace Selects Blue Origin's Honeybee Robotics to Provide Rover for Lunar Mission to Gruithuisen Domes
Firefly Aerospace contracts Honeybee Robotics to provide the lunar rover for its NASA task order to explore the Gruithuisen Domes on the Moon's near side in 2028, following…
Honeybee Robotics to Develop LUNARSABER for DARPA's LunA-10 Program
DARPA selects Honeybee Robotics for its 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study to develop LUNARSABER, a 100-meter-tall deployable lunar infrastructure integrating…
Honeybee Robotics wins NASA contract for Mars Sample Return System
NASA selects Honeybee Robotics to design, fabricate, and deliver the Spin Eject Mechanism (SEM) for the Mars Sample Return mission, including the Capture, Containment, and…
Honeybee Robotics to Join Blue Origin
Blue Origin announces the acquisition of Honeybee Robotics, a planetary robotics company with major operations in Longmont, Colorado and Altadena, California, adding space…
Blue Origin space venture aims to acquire Honeybee Robotics, a pioneer in rover hardware
GeekWire covers Blue Origin's acquisition of Honeybee Robotics, highlighting co-founder Steve Gorevan and the company's history building hardware for NASA Mars rover missions.
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /companies/honeybee-robotics.md
- RSS feed: /companies/honeybee-robotics/feed.xml
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/companies/d16ba279-d04f-458b-bb19-40ef08a4abcd
- Revision history: /companies/honeybee-robotics/history
- Data documentation: /data
- Query this programmatically: Deploy MCP
Peer companies
- Impulse Space6 models
- AstroForge3 models
- Astrobotic Technology3 models
- China National Space Administration3 models
- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory3 models
- SpaceX3 models
Video
Ars Technica's John Timmer and Tiffany Kelly learn about the Planetary Deep Drill project for use on Mars by Honeybee Robotics and the American Museum of Natura
© 2013 Steam Powered Giraffe LLC. Video edited by David Michael Bennett Audio mixed by David Michael Bennett From Steam Powered Giraffe's upcoming Live Show DV
Honeybee Robotics has unmatched experience developing technologies for sample acquisition, caching and processing. This includes key technologies and architectu
The World Is Not Enough (WINE) is a concept for a new generation of spacecraft that takes advantage of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) to explore space. WIN
Honeybee Robotics is developing a sample acquisition and delivery system for Dragonfly, NASA’s next New Frontiers mission, led by Principal Investigator Elizabe
Honeybee Robotics, Company Presentation Jon Kakaley ENG331 NCSU
Honeybee Robotics Senior Electrical Engineer Cody Hyman attended Protocase’s Industry Meet & Greet last year at URC 2017. Cody provided feedback to student team
Dive into the future of space mechanisms with Stephen Indyk, Director of Space Systems at Honeybee Robotics (a Blue Origin company). This Innovation Talk explor
Jeff Bezos Acquires Honeybee Robotics For Blue Origin! Welcome back to Tech Splash, today on the channel we are going to feature Jeff Bezos gathers Honeybee Ro
Steve Gorevan - CEO Honeybee Robotics Mr. Gorevan has over 25 years of experience in leading advanced robotics and automation design, development, and implement
Heat Index
Serious56/100
A composite of competitive footprint, funding, press velocity, active partnerships, and supply-chain edges. Different from the Intelligence score below (which is per-form-factor productization). Non-robotics companies cap at 25.
Reality vs attention
Honeybee Robotics draws attention at the 34th percentile but verifies reality at the insufficient-data level among space robots.
6-month trend
Analysis
Funding runway warrants monitoring: last known round 57 months ago.
Signal flags
Dimension breakdown
Verified signal
Attention (reach, not merit)
DEPLOY Intelligence scores are computed from verified registry data: confirmed deployments, disclosed funding rounds, regulatory filings, active job listings, video viewership, and press coverage. Confidence ratings reflect data availability. Scores update nightly.
DEPLOY Indices — verified vs claimed
Last computed: Oct 2, 2026