The space agency is working to establish a long term human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s via a program called Artemis. In 2021, NASA announced that it had selected SpaceX’s Starship as the lander for the program’s first crewed surface mission, Artemis 3, which is scheduled to touch down near the lunar south pole in 2025 or 2026.
In March of this year, agency officials said that they planned to encourage the development of a second crewed lander for Artemis, to provide redundancy and resilience for the program. That plan became official today 16 of September, when NASA issued a call for proposals from private companies.
“Work done under this solicitation, in addition to current lander development and studies taking place, will help build the foundation for long-term deep space exploration,”
“Partnering with American companies to do that work now allows us to leverage NASA’s knowledge and expertise to encourage technological innovations for a sustained presence at the moon,”
Lisa Watson-Morgan, program manager for the Human Landing System Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, said in a statement.
Companies that are selected under the contract will be required to perform two demonstration flights to the lunar surface, one uncrewed and one crewed. The contract that SpaceX already holds with NASA has a similar requirement; the crewed test flight is part of the Artemis 3 mission.
Though SpaceX apparently won’t be allowed to bid for the new contract, NASA wants Starship to be part of the Artemis program over the long haul. NASA officials said in today’s statement that they plan to exercise an option in SpaceX’s existing contract, asking the company to evolve its Artemis 3 Starship design “to meet an extended set of requirements for sustaining missions at the moon and conduct another crewed demonstration landing.”
The Artemis program could pick up serious steam in a matter of days. NASA is gearing up for the program’s first ever test flight, Artemis 1, which will use a Space Launch System rocket to send an Orion capsule on an uncrewed journey to lunar orbit and back.
Artemis 1 originally supposed to launch on 29 of August, but technical glitches pushed the liftoff attempt back several times. The agency is currently targeting 27 of September for the launch.
