The story
Honeybee Robotics was founded in January 1983 by Steve Gorevan and Chris Chapman as a systems integrator using off-the-shelf robots. The company's first offices were above a piano shop on the Lower East Side of New York City. Their early work included robotic arms, robot end-effectors, and smart task-oriented electromechanical systems for companies including IBM, Allied Signal, The Salk Institute, Merck, 3M, and Con Edison.
Honeybee Robotics received its first NASA contract in 1986 and continues to receive contracts to design and develop space systems.
Honeybee Robotics was acquired by Ensign-Bickford Industries in 2017. In 2018, Avior Control Technologies was acquired by Ensign-Bickford Industries, which then merged Avior with Honeybee in 2019. Avior had been founded in 2010 by Scott Starin to design and manufacture motion-control components including custom motors, gearboxes, dampers, transducers, and actuators for the space, aerospace, and down-hole industries. In January 2022, Honeybee Robotics was sold to Blue Origin.
In February 2023, the company shipped the Phobos Mining System to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and has also partnered with NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to study the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos.
On May 19, 2023, Honeybee Robotics' parent company, Blue Origin, won a $3.4 Billion contract to build a Moon lander and additional spacecraft for NASA's Artemis program. The team, led by Blue Origin, is a partnership between Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics.
From Wikipedia’s article on Honeybee Robotics, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3