Contracts galore as NASA accelerates the Artemis project to land on the moon

From here 2024, NASA plans to return to the Moon, 2028 on the outside.

To help achieve this and keep astronauts alive when they arrive, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has contracted right and left, and promised to spend $ 20 billion or more in effort, money that could go directly in the coffers. from some of America's most exciting "space societies".

But all NASA contracts do not involve the exchange of money – at least not at the beginning.

At the end of last month, NASA announced its latest group of partnerships, calling on 13 separate space companies to help "industry-developed space technologies" for the agency "and help maintain the US leadership in space "through a type of government contract called" Space ". Act of agreement. "

Under these agreements, NASA intends to provide its partners with "valuable expertise, facilities, hardware and software" at no cost. The goal: "bring to the market new features that could benefit future NASA missions" – for which NASA will pay.

Some of the companies that have won partnership agreements are names you've heard about, others not. But all of them, these companies are worth considering as potential investments. As the space race accelerates and as NASA's money flows, lesser known names could be floated on the stock market, and the biggest names will get bigger.

The usual suspects

Speaking of "big names that get bigger", let's start with a few names you already know. NASA has engaged four major publicly traded companies to partner with them to "mature" the technologies needed to return to the moon. Two of them, Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE: AJRD) and Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE: SPR), received a contract each.

Aerojet will use "innovative processes and materials" to "design and manufacture a light rocket engine combustion chamber" for future spacecraft. Meanwhile, Spirit AeroSystems will use "knuckle friction welding" techniques developed in the construction of NASA's space launch system "to improve the durability of low-cost reusable rockets".

Two others – Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR) – were even luckier, winning a pair of contracts each.

Lockheed Martin will test assembled "materials" with the help of additive manufacturing (3D printing) "to improve the design of spacecraft operating in high temperature environments". Lockheed will also try to test how robotics can be used to "help NASA harvest plants on future platforms in far-flung spaces."

Maxar, already hired to build the key power and propulsion element of NASA's forthcoming Lunar Gateway Space Station, will continue its energy-related work by helping NASA to "test cells." solar lights for flexible solar panels ". And Maxar will help build "a semi-rigid deployable radio antenna" that can be packaged into a spacecraft and deployed and deployed in orbit, solving two critical issues for orbiting Earth's space components. constraints and costs – making more efficient use of the transport space.

Known unknowns

So you have four reputable brand companies, all traded on the stock market and available for investment. In our next group of companies, we are turning to companies increasingly known as "space companies", but which remain private for the moment. We do not know when or even if any of these companies will become public. Moreover, since their financial data are not disclosed publicly, we do not even know if it would be worthwhile to invest, even if made go public one day.

But just in case they do, let's take a look:

Blue origin: The pioneering space launch company of Jeff Bezos won a total of three contracts with NASA last month, more than any other company on the list. Blue Origin (1) will work on a navigation and guidance system for landings on the moon, (2) will continue its own work on a fuel cell power system for the Blue Moon Lander of the Enterprise, and (3) "mature high-temperature liquid rocket materials". engine injectors that could be used on lunar landers ".

SpaceX (led by technology giant Bezos, Elon Musk) won contracts to perfect the process of in-orbit propellant transfer – required for its own refueling vessel – and to study the procedure of landing large rockets atop the moon.

Finally, the private company Sierra Nevada Corporation "will capture the infrared images of its Dream Chaser spacecraft while it will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere" (presumably to see how it handles frictional heat), and will also work with NASA to propose "a method of heat recovery". upper stage of a rocket using a deployable decelerator ".

Unknown unknown

And finally, we come to NASA's new partners, about whom we know almost nothing at all. These include names like:

• Advanced Area Boulder, Colorado
• Vulcan Wireless from Carlsbad, California
• Boston Airgel Technologies
• Anasphere of Bozeman, Montana
• Bally Bally Mills, Bally, Pennsylvania
• and Colorado Power Electronics Inc. of Fort Collins, Colorado

They will work on everything from "Advanced Space" ("Advanced Space") to "Compact Hydrogen Generators" (Anasphere) through the test "of a new seamless weave for a fabric heat shield." mechanically deployable carbon "(Bally Ribbon).

The more they progress, the closer NASA will get back to the Moon. And more this Thanks to the progress of the project, more than 13 of these companies can expect to start earning part of NASA's $ 20 billion spoils.