NASA through a press release informed that it now plans to support a private company that would help build another lunar lander for their Artemis mission. The Artemis mission is NASA’s flagship spaceflight mission that will send its astronauts to the moon. This comes in the wake of developments, as sole proprietor SpaceX has deviated from its given timeline for 2025 and the Elon Musk-led company’s first lunar lander would not be ready.
It’s important to note that NASA had initially wanted to choose between two companies to implement the plan, but had to pull out of the same, citing budget crises. Now the space agency has gone back to its previous plan. So what’s the deal about and when does NASA want to see its landers ready? Read to know more.
Artemis III astronauts will land on the moon aboard a @SpaceX Starship human landing system.
We will ask US companies to develop astronaut lunar landers for @NASAArtemis missions further #Artemis III: pic.twitter.com/Z32ITvK6EW
— NASA (@NASA) March 23, 2022
NASA and Elon Musk-led SpaceX have signed an agreement that entrusted the latter with responsibility for building the first lunar lander. The contract, estimated to have a net worth of $2.9 billion, aims to design the Starship vehicle so that it can help mobilize astronauts from the lunar surface.
This contract was signed on May 1, 2021. The contract given to SpaceX included an unmanned flight and a single manned landing for the Artemis III mission. NASA posts this announcement will go ahead and make some changes to the contract previously signed with SpaceX as they look for another partner to fuel their plans to the moon.
What were NASA’s original plans?
Given that the US budget will soon arrive on March 28, NASA’s announcement is not surprising. Even many lawmakers would have wanted NASA to continue with 2 lunar landers. At first NASA thought to choose between 3 companies and the first two concepts would have helped them. These three companies were SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics.
But due to lack of budget, NASA was only able to pick up one. Notably, NASA had asked for a $3.4 billion budget, but Congress was only able to provide $850 million. This led NASA to continue with SpaceX as the only option.