NASA Awards $590 Mln Contracts To 3 Companies To Build Moon Outpost

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - NASA has selected three companies to land four new missions on the Moon in late 2028 as part of the U.S space agency's Moon Base Program. Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, and Intuitive Machines will deliver NASA science payloads to the lunar surface as it builds the first long…

The three companies have been awarded contracts worth a total of $590 million.

'These new awards to our commercial partners, totaling nearly $600 million to land more missions on the Moon with science payloads, demonstrate our commitment to accelerating our effort to build a long-term presence on the lunar surface, and give us more opportunity to develop the skills we need to prosper there,' said Lori Glaze, associate administrator for the Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Astrobotic is awarded $297.9 million total for two deliveries, as well as Firefly Aerospace $144.2 million and Intuitive Machines $148.3 million for one delivery each as part of the agency's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative, a backbone of the Moon Base. Each will use updated versions of already-flown lander designs to enable NASA's increased mission cadence.

'We're building a proving ground for Moon Base operations,' said Ryan Stephan, NASA's Moon Base acting director of cargo landers. 'Accelerating our Moon mission ordering cadence and launch opportunities enable us to move quickly to learn, iterate, and improve.'

With 17 lunar surface deliveries across multiple providers, NASA also announced new opportunities for American industry to contribute to the Moon Base. The agency is considering plans to send to the Moon, PROMISE (Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration), a hybrid engineering development version of the Mars Perseverance and Curiosity rovers.

In addition, NASA plans to solicit proposals in the coming months for lunar landers to deliver a power and avionics technology demonstration, and a South Pole optical imager. NASA also will share an open solicitation for Moon Base technology demonstrations and seek a lunar communication and navigation relay constellation to enable improved communication between Moon Base elements and Earth.

The awards announced on Tuesday will play a critical role in establishing the infrastructure for lunar surface operations. The companies are responsible for initiating and executing procurements, providing an assessment of a similar previous lunar lander, and incorporating lessons learned to improve the overall mission reliability.

Each delivery will carry three NASA payloads to the lunar surface.