NASA Selects Five U.S. Companies to Mature Artemis Lander Concepts
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — 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.
Learn more about Artemis at:
13 responses to “NASA Selects Five U.S. Companies to Mature Artemis Lander Concepts”
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most of this money is wasted
Yes, when politics and not logic drives spending it usually is.
the sad thing, the thing Ballast Bill should look at is trying to give some direction to the program there is none
Of course, whatever direction he gives, it will send more money to Florida.
The “program” needs “direction” less than it needs a second source of privately-raised and enthusiastic private sector capital. SpaceX is providing its part of the “program” with all the “direction” it needs. Some other entity needs to step up and do likewise. That other entity isn’t going to be any of the legacy majors and it looks increasingly as though it isn’t going to be Blue Origin either.
SpaceX won HLS because they offered an option N vehicle in HLS (and then some; more room, a medical bay, 100 day loiter vs 80, 4+ crew) for a lower price. Now they have a substantial lead and can under-bid
I’ll be curious to see h ow it all works out. the entire situation right now in my view is leaderless
That’s a feature, not a bug. An actual market – which travel to and from the Moon is in the process of becoming – are “lead” by whichever provider does the best job. No governmental baton-waving required.
not sure I agree with that…
The construction industry, retail industry, automobile industry, and transportation industry among many others are leaderless in the sense meant here. All of them could do better of course, but a leader would not facilitate that.
Most (definitely not all) of the efforts that depend on a government leading are in far worse shape from a consumer standpoint. Medicine and education are possibly the stars of the dark side. Best technical ability in history wearing the chains of bureaucracy.
so essentially the BO concept got 90 million and the competitor 40
True. But if you are expecting anything other than a big & shiny vehicle to be actually landing on the Moon any time soon. You will be disappointed.
Most of the money is awarded for the pork trough.
Not enough to move either ball very far forward, but I guess these awards are a bit like the “lovely parting gifts and a copy of our home game” traditionally handed to TV game show also-rans.