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Lockheed Martin Illustration showing the design of Lockheed Martin for his McCandless Lunar Lander. - NASA landed for the last time almost half a century ago. lunar surface.
- On Thursday, the space agency announced that it would offer contracts worth up to $ 2.6 billion to nine US companies in hopes of reaching the moon by 2022. [19659005] NASA wants companies to submit their offer to pilot the agency. experiences aboard commercial lunar landers.
- The NASA administrator hopes that the program will help forge a "solid market" for a faster and cheaper commercial exploration of the moon and finally Mars.
The last time a NASA spacecraft landed safely on the moon dates back to December 1972. Nearly fifty years after Apollo 17, however, the space agency is eager to return.
NASA announced Thursday that it would offer contracts worth up to $ 2.6 billion to nine US companies to bring it back to the lunar surface.
NASA will not buy the company's lunar landing gear, nor badume responsibility for the launch, landing or control of the robots. NASA wants the private sector to meet these challenges and offers the opportunity to conduct NASA's moon experiments.
"We are doing something that has never been done before," said Jim Bridenstine, NASA Administrator, live broadcast Thursday. "When we go to the Moon, we want to be a customer among many customers in a robust market between the Earth and the Moon."
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Bridenstine adds that the The goal is to take advantage of emerging international demand – commercial and space agencies of other nations – to land and exploit the resources of the Moon
He considers the $ 2.6 billion in contracts (it is unlikely that all this money will be spent) as a way to encourage companies to compete for costs and innovation so that NASA can do more than we have already done. "
A lunar exploration program led by science
PNAS [19659003] A map of "cold traps" in the lunar craters at the north pole of the moon t) and south pole (right). The green and teal dots show the places where ice water may be present on or near the surface. This effort is a new phase of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to encourage lunar trade missions. Bridenstine said that NASA's scientific division will decide how the money will be spent, not its human exploration division.
"The moon is full of secrets we do not know yet," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's Deputy Administrator for Science.
million. Zurbuchen explained that the agency would create a catalog of payloads for companies to bid on. The first set of proposals is expected in January, NASA said in a statement. The first missions could land on the Moon as early as 2019 or even 2022.
Boeing ” onerror=”this.style.display=’none;'” clbad=”lazy” src=”https://www.businessinsider.in/thumb/msid-60085318,width-640,resizemode-4/default-businessinsider-india.jpg” data-original=”https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5bbe8e0b9fb84c49bc27e914-2000/deep-space-lunar-gateway-boeing.jpg” title=”” width=”” height=””/> Deep Space Gate Gateway for NASA by Boeing. In addition to allowing scientific experiments to refine what we know about the age of the solar system and the universe, CLPS technology could also be a springboard to the # 39; exploration of the human space.
If successful, the program could identify NASA's "Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway": a human space station to be built near the moon in the 2020s.
"On the moon, there is On the moon, there are precious resources, "said Zurbuchen. "We want to learn how to use these resources because – guess what? – we want to go back with humans and use them to bring us back to Earth or to feed, breathe, drink."
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The water can be turned into hydrogen and oxygen, which can then be used as fuel to propel a ambitious exploration in deep space (including that of Mars). So, later on, NASA could use this competition to solicit much larger landers who could take people to and from the lunar surface in the late 2020s.
"Ultimately, we're going to go there. take on Mars from the moon, "says Bridenstine. "We want to take advantage of the water ice that we believe is available in hundreds of billions of tons on the surface of the moon."
The 9 companies invited to dispute the billions of dollars of NASA
In alphabetical order, these According to NASA, the nine companies are able to prepare their experiments on the Moon (and maybe back) :
- Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology
- Deep Space Systems (based in Littleton, Colorado) [19659030] Draper (Cambridge, Mbadachusetts-based)
- Firefly Aerospace, Inc. (based in Cedar Park, Texas) )
- Intuitive Machines, LLC (based in Houston)
- Lockheed Martin Space (based in Littleton, Colorado)
- Masten Space Systems, Inc. (Mojave, California)
- Moon Express (based in Cape Canaveral, Florida)
- OrbitBeyond (based in Edison, New Jersey)
NASA stated that this list could be expanded and these companies will not be alone in their commercial endeavors.
Thom Baur / Reuters Many of the nine companies rely on subcontractors for the construction of landing systems and d & # 39; avionics. All will require a private rocket ride to the moon, as NASA Space Launch System
SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, has a new Falcon Heavy rocket powerful enough to send a large spaceship or several small landers on the moon for perhaps under $ 100 million.
There is also Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos. In October, Blue Origin said to be "in the conceptual design phase" of building a large lunar lander called "Blue Moon". The company also creates a reusable rocket system called New Glenn, which is expected to take off in 2020.
Blue Origin [19659003] Illustration of Blue Origin's new reusable rocket, Blue Origin's new glenn heading towards space. The Peregrine Lander
One of the nine NASA-nominated companies, Astrobotic, created in 2007 on the occasion of the Google Lunar X Prize. This $ 20 million competition was intended to stimulate private exploration of the moon, but the competition ended in 2018 without a winner. However, Astrobotic continued to develop a small lunar lander called Peregrine. (Prior to NASA's announcement, Business Insider had independently confirmed that Astrobotic would be one of the commercial partners.)
In March, Astrobotic reportedly collaborated with the United Launch Alliance (ULA) aerospace company ) to find room for a rocket that can fly Peregrine. In May, Space News announced that Astrobotic was preparing to bring 12 payloads to the lunar surface.
In August, Astrobotic received $ 10 million from NASA to create a "reliable, cost-effective and reliable system." performance, an autonomous system "to place a lunar commercial spacecraft on the moon." The funding was part of the $ 44 million NASA allocated to companies developing "tipping point" technologies for space exploration. 19659009] Unlike previous attempts by NASA to return to the lunar surface, all splashed, said Bridenstine of the SPDP The program will succeed. "19659009]" It will never be "Lucy and football" ", did he said, referring to the famous comic "Peanuts" (in which Charlie Brown can never hit a football).
"Everyone is ready to return to the moon," said Bridenstine.
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