NASA plans to give SpaceX some companies on the Moon

It won’t just be SpaceX to the moon if NASA officials get their wish. That could be a boon to Jeff Bezos’ space dreams.

As part of Artemis, NASA’s program to return astronauts to the moon, the agency in 2019 sought to hire two companies to provide landers to bring their astronauts from orbit moon to the surface of the moon. But with insufficient funding from Congress, the agency decided last April to award only one contract to SpaceX.

Other companies will have a chance to compete for future missions, NASA officials said.

On Wednesday, Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said the space agency would soon announce a competition to develop a second lunar lander.

“I promised competition,” said Nelson, “and here it is.”

The latter will share NASA’s moon missions — about once a year over the course of a decade or so — with SpaceX. “These are not isolated missions,” Mr. Nelson said. Each will build on past advancements. “

Similar to SpaceX’s contract last year, the second company will receive funding for two landings – one without astronauts to demonstrate the spacecraft’s capabilities, followed by a second mission. two with the astronauts.

Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development, said the aim would be for the crewed mission to happen in 2026 or 2027.

Moon landers follow NASA’s recent approach of seeking fixed-price contracts that set certain requirements but encourage innovation by allowing private companies to come up with designs. their own to meet agency needs and compete on price. That approach has resulted in SpaceX’s ship carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. In the past, NASA often led the development of rockets and spacecraft, and companies were paid to execute the plan, often at a much higher cost.

However, planning a second moon landing depends on Congress providing money to pay for it. Mr. Nelson said he would not discuss how much the program could cost until the president’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2023 is published early next week.

After SpaceX was named the sole winner last year, two companies lost out – Blue Origin, the rocket company started by Mr. Bezos, the founder of Amazon; and Dynetics, a defense contractor, filed an objection with the federal Government’s Office of Accountability. Blue Origin’s offer is twice the price offered by SpaceX, and Dynetics is even higher.

The GAO has ruled against both companies.

Blue Origin then sued NASA in federal court. It was lost again.

Blue Origin and Dynetics now have a second chance, as do other companies that want to submit proposals. Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA’s human landing systems program manager, said the agency plans to decide on a second lander early next year.

In a statement, Dynetics said the company is “delighted to hear about NASA’s plans,” and looks forward to reviewing the upcoming call for proposals.

Blue Origin also cheered the announcement. “Blue Origin is pleased that NASA is creating competition by procuring a second human moon landing system,” the company said in its statement. “Blue Origin is competitively ready and remains deeply committed to Artemis’ success.”

The requirements for the second lander to be more ambitious – more rows, longer at the surface – reflect a desire to do more ambitious missions to the moon.

Additionally, NASA will negotiate with SpaceX under an existing contract to build a lander that meets the new requirements, Ms. Watson-Morgan said.

NASA’s journey to return astronauts to the moon has been long and winding, and the current 2025 goal of adding a new American footprint on the moon seems unrealistically optimistic.

However, NASA is still making a lot of progress.

One giant rocket, the Space Launch System, is finally at the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, though it will just sit there for now. Next month, NASA will conduct a countdown exercise – fuel the rocket but do not activate the engine. The rocket will then return to the Vehicle Assembly Building – essentially a giant tall garage for the rocket – for final preparations for an unmanned test launch called the Artemis 1 that has could take place as early as this summer. It will send a capsule, Orion, around the moon and back to Earth.

The second Artemis mission will be the first with astronauts riding inside the Orion crew capsule at the top of the SLS rocket. That flight, set to be penned in May 2024, will enter orbit around the moon before returning to Earth.

The first moon landing will take place no earlier than 2025, in Artemis 3. The four astronauts will again send an Orion capsule to lunar orbit, where they will dock with the SpaceX Starship spacecraft, The train will be there waiting for them. NASA says two of the astronauts – the first woman and the first person of color – will travel to Starship and then land near the moon’s south pole and stay on the surface for about a week.

SpaceX launched a series of Starship prototypes from its site in South Texas to an altitude of about 6 miles to show how it would tip over after re-entering the atmosphere to slow down and then land vertically. . In May, after four failed tests, one of the prototypes landed successfully. SpaceX is aiming for the first Starship orbital flight in the coming months.

The goal of returning astronauts to the moon has been revived under the Trump administration. NASA officials then, and now under Biden, insist that the goal this time is not the end but the beginning of larger human expeditions to the moon, and eventually going further into the solar system.

With Wednesday’s announcement, NASA is trying to turn that hope into a continuation program.