NASA is asking private industry to come up with ideas for another astronaut landing on the moon.
The space agency is working to establish a long-term human presence on and around the moon by the late 2020s. Artemis. In 2021, NASA announced that it was selected SpaceX’s Starship as the lander of the program’s first manned ground mission, Artemis 3In 2025 or 2026, the Moon is scheduled to land near the south pole.
In March of this year, agency officials said they plan to promote the development of a Second crew landing for Artemis, to ensure redundancy and continuity for the program. That plan became official today (September 16) after NASA issued a call for proposals from private companies.
Related: NASA’s Artemis moon exploration program
Lisa Watson-Morgan, program manager for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Human Landing System Program, said, “The work done under this request will help establish the foundation for long-term deep space exploration, in addition to current lander development and research.” said in a statement issued today (opens in new tab).
“Partnering with American companies to do this work now allows us to leverage NASA’s knowledge and expertise to continue to drive technological innovation.” month“, – said Watson-Morgan.
NASA released a draft of the new proposal on March 31 and held a virtual “industry day” on it in April before the final call today, agency officials said. Proposals are submitted until November. 15 of this year. The companies selected under the contract will have to perform two demonstration flights to the lunar surface, one without a crew and one with a crew.
SpaceX already has a similar requirement in its contract with NASA; The crewed test flight is part of the Artemis 3 mission.
Though SpaceX will probably not be allowed to bid for a new contract, NASA wants Starship to be part of the Artemis program for the long term. NASA officials said in a statement today that they plan to exercise an option in SpaceX’s existing contract, asking the company to improve the Artemis 3 Starship design to “meet the broad requirements for continuing missions to the moon and to conduct another crewed demonstration landing.”
The Artemis program could pick up serious steam in a matter of days. NASA is preparing for the program’s first test flight. Artemis 1will use a Space launch system A rocket to send the Orion capsule on an unmanned journey to lunar orbit and back.
Artemis 1 was originally supposed to be launched in August. 29, but technical problems pushed back the flight attempt several times. Agency currently Aiming for September 27 for activation.
Mike Wall is the author of “There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter. @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or where Facebook (opens in new tab).
