NASA announced Thursday nine U.S. companies that can compete to deliver supplies for the agency’s planned moon operation.
These companies are now are eligible to bid on “delivering science and technology payloads” to the lunar surface via Commercial Lunar Payload Services contracts, NASA said.
“Today’s announcement marks tangible progress in America’s return to the Moon’s surface to stay,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. “The innovation of America’s aerospace companies, wedded with our big goals in science and human exploration, are going to help us achieve amazing things on the Moon and feed forward to Mars.”
The Trump administration has prioritized creating a space station, the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, in the moon’s orbit by the 2020s, which could set up missions both on the lunar surface as well as crewed deep-space missions sent farther out into the solar system, including Mars. The space agency hopes to get a big boost in these projects from U.S. industry partners. Astronauts haven’t been to the moon since 1972.
The CLPS contracts are “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts with a combined maximum contract value of $2.6 billion during the next 10 years,” which could lead to lunar payload missions starting as early as 2019, NASA said.
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate initiated the proposal process that ultimately led to the selection of these companies, which will seek to help the agency send small payloads, including instruments and experiments, to the moon.
The companies eligible for CLPS contracts are Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, Penn.; Deep Space Systems of Littleton, Colo.; Draper of Cambridge, Mass.; Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Texas; Intuitive Machines of Houston, Texas; Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colo.; Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif.; Moon Express of Cape Canaveral, Fla.; Orbit Beyond of Edison, N.J.
NASA indicated that it may offer more contracts in the future.
