NASA wants SpaceX and Blue Origin to deliver cargo to the moon

The bureau wants Elon Musk’s SpaceX to usage its Starship cargo lander to present a pressurized rover to the Moon “no earlier” than 2032, portion Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin volition beryllium tasked with delivering a lunar aboveground situation nary sooner than 2033. Both launches volition enactment NASA’s Artemis missions, which purpose to bring humans backmost to the Moon for the archetypal clip successful implicit 50 years.

Both companies are processing quality landing systems for Artemis missions — SpaceX for Artemis III and Blue Origin for Artemis V. NASA aboriginal asked some companies to develop cargo-hauling variants of those landers, susceptible of carrying 26,000 to 33,000 pounds of instrumentality and different materials to the Moon.

NASA says it volition contented proposals to SpaceX and Blue Origin astatine the opening of adjacent year.

“Having 2 lunar lander providers with antithetic approaches for unit and cargo landing capableness provides ngo flexibility portion ensuring a regular cadence of Moon landings for continued find and technological opportunity,” Stephen D. Creech, NASA’s adjunct lawman subordinate head for the Moon to Mars program, said successful the announcement.