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Illustration of an Artemis astronaut walking on the Moon. Credit: NASA
Nasa selected five U.S. companies to help the agency enable a steady pace of crewed travel to the lunar surface as part of the agency’s Artemis program. These companies will make progress towards sustainable human landing system concepts, conduct risk reduction activities, and provide feedback on NASA’s requirements to develop industry capabilities for crewed lunar landing missions. .
The awards under the General Announcement of Upcoming Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-2) in Annex N of Annex N are firm fixed price contracts based on milestones. The total combined value of the prizes is $ 146 million, and the work will be completed over the next 15 months. The companies that have received awards and their award values are:
- Blue Origin Federation of Kent, Washington, $ 25.6 million.
- Dynetics (a Leidos company) of Huntsville, Alabama, $ 40.8 million.
- Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colorado, $ 35.2 million.
- Northrop Grumman of Dulles, Virginia, $ 34.8 million.
- EspaceX from Hawthorne, Calif., $ 9.4 million.
“Establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon through recurring services using lunar landers is a major goal of Artemis,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA associate administrator for exploration and human operations at headquarters at Washington. “This critical step lays the foundation for American leadership in learning more about the Moon and in learning to live and work in deep space for future missions further into the solar system.”
Illustration of the design of the SpaceX Starship human lander that could transport NASA’s first astronauts to the surface of the moon as part of the Artemis program. Credit: SpaceX
The selected companies will develop lander design concepts, evaluating their performance, design, construction standards, mission assurance requirements, interfaces, safety, crew health accommodation and their medical capabilities. Companies will also mitigate risks associated with lunar landers by performing tests of critical components and advancing the maturity of key technologies.
The work of these companies will ultimately help shape the strategy and requirements for a future NASA solicitation to provide regular transport of astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon.
“Collaboration with our partners is essential to achieving NASA’s long-term Artemis lunar exploration goals,” Lisa Watson-Morgan, Human Landing System Program Manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, said in Huntsville, Alabama. “By partnering with innovative American companies, we will build a robust lunar economy while exploring new areas of the moon for generations to come. “
This opportunity is separate from the initial crewed Lunar Landing Demonstration Mission assigned as part of Annex H NextSTEP-2 supply, which will serve as a proof of concept for the Artemis architecture.
One of the goals of NASA under Artemis is to enable a safe and cost-effective long-term approach to access the lunar surface and become one of the many customers purchasing services in a lunar transport market. Much of what the agency is developing for the Moon will be applied to future exploration at March.
NASA’s Artemis missions include landing the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface, sending a series of new scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to study the moon, and establishing a ‘a long-term presence there.
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