TransOrbital is a California-based company which became the first private company granted U.S. government permission to explore, photograph, and land on the moon.[1][2] The company has been covered in over 2,000 news articles worldwide, and announced a sponsorship agreement with Hewlett-Packard in 2003. The company has not yet launched the TrailBlazer lunar orbiter, which hopes to be the first private mission to the Moon.
TransOrbital launched a test spacecraft into orbit in 2002 aboard a Dnepr-1 launch vehicle. The satellite is a 420 kg test article that orbits the earth every 97 minutes.[3]