Next year, up to 18 teams competing in the Google Lunar XPRIZE will embark on a journey to the moon. There’s Penn State’s student-led team and Moon Express, which boasts NASA alumni as its founders. But then there’s Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh-based company spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2008, and their journey is more than a race to be the first private company to land on the moon: it’s business.

When Astrobotic’s Griffin lander takes off aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket next year, it will be carrying precious cargo. There will be a rover, of course, which will be capable of driving the 500 meters across the moon’s surface required to win the competition. But there will also be commercial cargo that institutions have paid Astrobotic to deliver to the moon, its orbit or space.

“You can think of us as a FedEx or UPS service to the…