Five firms join NASA’s Artemis push, developing next-gen lunar landers for a lasting human presence on the Moon.
NASA has selected five U.S. companies to help the agency enable a steady pace of crewed trips to the lunar surface under the agency’s Artemis program. These companies will make advancements toward sustainable human landing system concepts, conduct risk-reduction activities, and provide feedback on NASA’s requirements to cultivate industry capabilities for crewed lunar landing missions.
The awards under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-2) Appendix N broad agency announcement are firm fixed-price, milestone-based contracts. The total combined value for the awards is $146 million, and the work will be conducted over the next 15 months. The companies that 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.
- SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, $9.4 million.
“Establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon through recurring services using lunar landers is a major Artemis goal,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at Headquarters in Washington. “This critical step lays the foundation for U.S. leadership in learning more about the Moon and for learning how to live and work in deep space for future missions farther into the solar system.”
The selected companies will develop lander design concepts, evaluating their performance, design, construction standards, mission assurance requirements, interfaces, safety, crew health accommodations, and medical capabilities. The companies will also mitigate lunar lander risks by conducting critical component tests and advancing the maturity of key technologies.
The work from these companies will ultimately help shape the strategy and requirements for a future NASA’s solicitation to provide regular astronaut transportation from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon.
“Collaboration with our partners is critical to achieving NASA’s long-term Artemis lunar exploration goals,” said Lisa Watson-Morgan, Human Landing System Program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “By partnering with innovative U.S. companies, we will establish a robust lunar economy while exploring new areas of the Moon for generations to come.”
This opportunity is distinct from the initial crewed lunar landing demonstration mission awarded under the NextSTEP-2 Appendix H procurement, which will serve as the proof of concept for the Artemis architecture.
NASA’s goals under Artemis include enabling a safe and cost-efficient long-term approach to accessing the lunar surface and becoming one of multiple customers purchasing services in a lunar transportation market. Much of what the agency develops for the Moon will be applied to future exploration at Mars.
NASA’s Artemis missions include landing the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface, sending a suite of new science instruments and technology demonstrations to study the Moon, and establishing a long-term presence there.
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8 Comments
Whatever the submissions I can pretty much guarantee that Blue Origin will have the best Rendering and Legal Teams.
I bet the big bucks will fail and demand more money while the x company will be the best
Peso besos will do his best
Correct… But
Phenom Must and his manifestation ability is just too much for whom ever else including peso and even NASA…
Musk single handedly forced NASA to make it more open to the rich for space race business opportunities if I’m not mistaking before space X nothing but NASA ran the race lots of copy cats as usual … All because of space tourism when phenoms ambitions had way more substance and direction …
If Starship is successful it will make every other Lander a piece of crap. Every other Lander seems apollo-era ish wow Starship Ohio for 5 decks of living space Laboratories and storage. Of course I could fail and all these other programs will be necessary but if it’s successful every other land on will be fifty years out of date and by the size and usefulness.
I don’t understand the distribution either.
Spacex is the only company that has delivered and yet their funding is lowest and the rest of the losers enterprises are getting awarded for not even being able to go into orbit?
Sounds like something is terribly wrong with NASA.
This is old news from a long time ago
They really need to add some reality to this. A company supplying rides to the moon 10 years from now needs to plan their technology to achieve a price of less than $10 million for one passenger plus 1 ton of supplies and equipment – vehicle amortization, fuel, and mission support services included. Anything else won’t compete and will be a waste.
These companies are going to have the government fund the testing and prototypes of the equipment and ships that they’re going to use to make their own corporate bases on the moon, separate from any US military or US government oversight. Just watch…