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NASA is seriously considering making its next Moonshot a joint public-private project.
The space agency is giving a total of $ 45.5 million to 11 American companies, including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, to help them develop a spacecraft capable of getting astronauts into the air. lunar surface. NASA wants to achieve this goal by 2024, as part of its ambitious Artemis Program.
The money will be awarded through NASA's Next SpaceP (Next Space Technologies) program. Each company must assume at least 20% of the total costs of its project, said officials of the agency.
Related: Can NASA really put astronauts on the Moon in 2024?
"To accelerate our return to the moon, we are challenging our traditional ways of doing things – everything from streamlining purchases to partnerships, hardware development, and even operations," said Marshall Smith, director of program development. Human lunar exploration at NASA headquarters in Washington. , DC, said in a statement today (May 16).
"Our team is excited to be returning to the moon as soon as possible and our public / private partnerships to study human landing systems are an important step in this process," said Smith.
NASA's lunar plane involves a small space station called bridge, that the agency intends to start building in lunar orbit within a few years. Gateway will serve as a surface exploration center; The astronauts will leave this outpost in orbit and will return when their work on the gray earth is completed.
Three separate spacecraft will be needed for these round trips, NASA officials said: "a transfer element" to transport Gateway astronauts to a low lunar orbit; a "descent element" that will bring them back to the ground; and an "element of ascent" for the return trip to Gateway.
Private landers for the moon
The recently announced funds will help the eleven companies study and build their versions of these three elements, as well as a possible "supply element" that can improve the reuse of the system as a whole. For example, the assignment of Blue Origin asks the company to perform a descent element study and a transfer element study, as well as to build a prototype of an element of transfer.
The Boeing trim is even more complete. The aerospace giant was asked to conduct studies on descent, transfer and refueling elements and to build prototypes of each of these vehicles (and two prototypes of the descent element , in fact).
The SpaceX award is for a descent element study.
The other eight companies receiving funding are Aerojet Rocketdyne, Dynetics, Lockheed Martin, Masten Space Systems, Northrop Grumman, OrbitBeyond, Sierra Nevada Corp. and SSL. Here's what each of these companies will do, according to NASA press release.
Aerojet Rocketdyne: Perform a transfer vehicle study.
Blue origin: Conduct a study of the descent elements, a study of the transfer vehicle and develop a prototype of a transfer vehicle.
Boeing: Perform a descent element study, develop two descent element prototypes, perform a transfer vehicle study, develop a transfer vehicle prototype, perform a refueling element study and develop a prototype refueling element.
Dynétique: Conduct a study of the descent elements and develop five prototypes of descent elements.
Lockheed Martin: Provide a descent element study, four descent element prototypes, a transfer vehicle study and a refueling element study.
Masten Space Systems: Provide a prototype descent element
Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems: Provide a descent element study, four descent element prototypes, a refueling element study and a prototype refueling element.
OrbitBeyond: Provide two prototypes of refueling elements
Sierra Nevada Corporation: Provide a survey of descent elements, a prototype of descent elements, a transfer vehicle study, a prototype on a transfer vehicle and a refueling study.
SpaceX: Perform a descent element study.
SSL: Provide a study on the refueling elements and a prototype refueling element.
The crewed lunar return became an official US policy in December 2017, when President Donald Trump signed the Space Policy Directive 1. NASA initially targeted the late 2020s for the next human mission on the lunar surface, but the vice president Mike Pence announced the most aggressive calendar 2024 last March.
This initial crew landing is not the end goal for Artemis. The program aims to establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on and around the Moon as a prelude to crew missions on Mars. The moon is an excellent starting point for the much tougher journey on the red planet, NASA officials said.
Mike Wall's book on the search for extraterrestrial life, "Over there"(Grand Central Publishing, 2018, illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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