PlanetVac can be used as either a mission's primary sampling device, or function as a low-cost backup for another sample system. The design minimizes moving parts, and can even use gas from the same tanks used to pressurize a spacecraft's fuel tanks.

NASA's CLPS program is using commercially built landers to ferry a mix of NASA-built and non-NASA payloads to the Moon. For the 12 non-NASA payloads, which includes PlanetVac, the agency is using a two-phase selection process. The first phase awards each payload up to $3 million to prepare for a possible Moon flight. NASA will then select one or more individual payloads for the second phase: an actual mission.

Three missions are scheduled thus far. In 2020, a lander built by Orbit Beyond of Edison, New Jersey will carry up to 4 payloads to Mare Imbrium, one of the Moon's dark lava plains visible from Earth. A year later, Houston, Texas-based Intuitive Machines will send as many as 5 payloads to Oceanus Procellarum, the Moon's largest lava plain. Also in 2021, Astrobiotic of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania will send up to 14 payloads to a large crater on the near side of the Moon named Lacus Mortis.