WASHINGTON \u2014 NASA has selected three companies to fly four robotic lunar lander missions worth nearly $600 million as part of its lunar base ambitions, as the agency weighs sending a spare Mars rover to the moon.<\/p>\n
During a June 30 online presentation, NASA officials announced they selected Astrobotic Technology, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines for lander missions scheduled for late 2028 with a combined value of $590.4 million.<\/p>\n
Astrobotic received awards for two flights of its Peregrine lander, with a total value of $297.9 million. Firefly received an award for its Blue Ghost lander worth $144.2 million. Intuitive Machines won an order for its Nova-C lander worth $148.3 million.<\/p>\n
Each lander will carry an identical set of three payloads. Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume Surface Studies, or SCALPSS, uses cameras to study the plume of regolith created by the exhaust of the lander\u2019s engines. Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer, or LETS, measures the radiation environment in transit to the moon and on the surface. The Laser Retroreflector Array is a small passive instrument that reflects lasers used for lunar rangefinding. Versions of all three payloads have flown on previous lander missions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy flying the same science instruments on multiple landers, we will better understand potential hazards during landing and build out a global network of environmental data and location markers on the moon,\u201d said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate, in a statement, comparing the payloads to weather stations.<\/p>\n
NASA did not disclose the landing sites for the missions. Astrobotic said in a statement about its awards that its two landers will go to the Gruithuisen Domes region on the near side of the moon. The agency added it will consider additional payloads for the landers.<\/p>\n
The awards are the sixth lander mission for Intuitive Machines, which has made two partially successful landings, and the fifth for Firefly Aerospace, whose first mission was a success. The Astrobotic awards are the third and fourth for the company but the first since NASA selected it in 2020 for the Griffin-1 mission.<\/p>\n
The awards come as Astrobotic completes Griffin-1<\/a>, which is scheduled to launch late this year on a mission NASA recently redesignated Moon Base 2.<\/p>\n \u201cThe experience gained from our first two lander programs has matured both our team and our technologies, and we look forward to applying those lessons to Peregrine-2 and Peregrine-3 as we continue supporting NASA in building America\u2019s Moon Base,\u201d John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been ensuring that they have the production capacity for that,\u201d Carlos Garc\u00eda-Gal\u00e1n, NASA program executive for Moon Base, said of Astrobotic\u2019s award in the presentation. \u201cThey do have the production capacity to complete Griffin-1 and go into the production of two landers \u2014 as a matter of fact, more than that \u2014 and they\u2019re actively working on expanding even beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n Intuitive Machines said its $148.3 million award was split into two parts. The company would get $68.6 million in a base award for the mission but $79.7 million in a \u201cperformance incentive\u201d for demonstrating the ability to provide \u201ca steady, rapid-turnaround supply of landers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are shifting the paradigm from custom aerospace engineering to commercial mass production of lunar infrastructure,\u201d Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said in a statement. \u201cThis contract directly advances our core mission to provide persistent, reliable and commercial baselines of transport, connectivity and operations that allow our customers to stay longer and achieve more on the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n A rover PROMISE<\/p>\n NASA also announced as part of the Moon Base update that it is studying sending to the moon a rover originally developed for Mars missions. The rover, which the agency is calling the Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration, or PROMISE, is an engineering model of the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are thinking very hard right now about sending PROMISE to the moon,\u201d NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said during the presentation, calling it part of efforts he previously announced to \u201craid the pantry at every one of our centers\u201d for payloads to fly on lander missions. The rover, he said, is at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is used to support operations of the Mars rovers.<\/p>\n NASA did not disclose what instruments PROMISE would carry, but Garc\u00eda-Gal\u00e1n said one capability will be its ability to survive the lunar night and enter permanently shadowed regions. PROMISE, like the Mars rovers, would have a nuclear power source, a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG.<\/p>\n That contrasts with VIPER, a rover NASA has developed to go to the moon to look for lunar volatiles and is scheduled to launch in 2027 on Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander. VIPER uses solar power. \u201cWith PROMISE we would not be constrained by solar power,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea is that we have hardware now that was designed for an incredibly harsh environment,\u201d Isaacman said. \u201cThat is an extremely capable vehicle, so there\u2019s very little that would, I think, hold us back from making use of that hardware at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n However, flying PROMISE could pose challenges for other NASA missions given the limited supply of RTG units. NASA officials have stated in recent meetings that plans for soliciting proposals for future New Frontiers planetary science missions will depend on the availability of RTGs needed for some potential destinations in the outer solar system, as well as for a Uranus orbiter flagship mission recommended by the planetary science decadal survey.<\/p>\n Other updates<\/p>\n The presentation about the new lander missions and repurposed rover came a month after NASA held its last briefing on the Moon Base program<\/a>, where it selected four companies for projects related to that effort, including lunar rovers that astronauts will drive.<\/p>\n NASA also designated the three lander missions already in development as Moon Base 1, 2 and 3, including the first Blue Moon Mark 1 lander as Moon Base 1. However, two days after the event, Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn rocket, which will launch Blue Moon, exploded on its launch pad during a static-fire test<\/a>.<\/p>\n After the explosion, NASA said it was considering alternative options for launching both the robotic Blue Moon Mark 1 lander and the larger, crewed Mark 2 lander. In this update, though, NASA said it is leaning toward keeping Blue Moon on New Glenn given the company\u2019s progress in recovering from the explosion and rebuilding the New Glenn launch pad.<\/p>\n \u201cPlan A is very much still to launch the Mark Ones on New Glenn, and we have time,\u201d Isaacman said. \u201cPlan A is looking a lot better today than it was weeks ago, just based on the progress that the Blue Origin team is making.\u201d<\/p>\n