NASA has revealed the nine companies eligible to compete for the right to ferry scientific instruments and tech demo payloads to the Moon aboard commercial robotic landers.
This $2.6 billion contract covers work over the next decade and is the first step in NASA's aim to expand private investment in deep space exploration. It's part of the "Commercial Lunar Payload Services," or CLPS (pronounced "clips") program. One of CLPS' goals is to again return Americans to the lunar surface.
The nine companies are:
* Astrobotic Technology Inc. (Pittsburgh);
* Deep Space Systems (Littleton, Colorado);
* Draper (Cambridge, Massachusetts);
* Aerospace Inc. (Cedar Park, Texas);
* Intuitive Machines LLC (Houston);
* Lockheed Martin Space (Littleton, Colorado);
* Masten Space Systems Inc. (Mojave, California);
* Moon Express (Cape Canaveral, Florida) and
* Orbit Beyond (Edison, New Jersey).
These companies will own and operate the robotic lunar landers. On the other hand, NASA buys capacity on the spacecraft to place research equipment.
These firms will be able to bid on NASA task orders to haul specific instruments and payloads to the Moon's surface. The announcement last week did not commit government funding to any of the companies. It only made the winners eligible to compete for mission task orders yet to be released by NASA.
Working with the private sector represents a fundamental change in NASA's traditional way of developing missions to the Moon and other solar system destinations, in which the government funds, owns and oversees every aspect of the project.
"We're doing something that's never been done before," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. He said when the U.S. returns to the Moon again, it wants to be one customer of many customers in a robust marketplace between the Earth and the Moon. He said NASA wants multiple providers that compete on cost and innovation.
Bridenstine said CLPS is one way NASA seeks to jump-start a stagnant U.S. lunar exploration program that's seen starts and stops under past presidential administrations over the past few decades. The Trump administration instructed NASA to re-emphasize the return of astronauts to the Moon. On the other hand, the Obama administration made getting to Mars as NASA's goal.
Bridenstine said the inclusion of commercial companies will make the current lunar exploration effort "more resilient" than those of the past.
He noted the reason this is more resilient than before is that NASA has commercial customers that aren't necessarily NASA. He pointed out NASA has international partners on a level it's never seen before - "more partners than ever before."
