BERLIN – NASA plans to use cargo versions of Artemis lunar landers, being developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX, to deliver a pressurized rover and surface habitat to the moon’s surface in the early 2030s.
NASA has announced that it will add work to existing contracts to develop cargo versions of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon and SpaceX’s Starship to deliver payloads to the moon’s surface. These are the first awards since the agency announced in January that it would commission the two companies to work on cargo versions of their Human Landing System (HLS) spacecraft.
NASA said Starship will deliver the pressurized rover that Japan’s space agency JAXA is developing no earlier than fiscal year 2032 under an agreement announced in April. Blue Moon will not deliver a lunar surface habitat until fiscal year 2033.
“Based on current design and development progress for both crew and cargo landers and the Artemis mission schedules for the crew lander versions, NASA has awarded a pressurized rover mission to SpaceX and a lunar habitat delivery to Blue Origin,” Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA HLS program manager, said in a Nov. 19 statement.
NASA has not disclosed the value of the two companies’ upcoming rewards for those missions. NASA said in its statement that it will send a request for proposals to the two companies for those missions in early 2025, and did not explain why it announced the planned awards months in advance.
The agency also did not reveal why it selected each company for its specific cargo mission. “Having two lunar lander suppliers with different approaches to crew and cargo landing capabilities provides mission flexibility while ensuring a regular cadence of lunar landings for continued discovery and science opportunities,” said Steve Creech, NASA assistant deputy administrator for engineering research in the Moon to Mars Program Office, the statement said.
NASA revealed in January that it had ordered the two companies to begin work on cargo versions of their HLS landers. The agency said at the time that the landers are designed to deliver a minimum of 12 to 15 tons to the lunar surface, far more than the robotic landers the agency is using in its ongoing Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to deliver science and technology demonstration payloads.
NASA said in January that initial work on the cargo versions of Blue Moon and Starship would be conducted under existing HLS prices and that no additional funding would be required.