{"id":17875,"date":"2019-11-18T23:16:53","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T15:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-adds-five-companies-including-blue-origin-and-spacex-to-moon-delivery-list\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T23:16:53","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T15:16:53","slug":"nasa-adds-five-companies-including-blue-origin-and-spacex-to-moon-delivery-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-adds-five-companies-including-blue-origin-and-spacex-to-moon-delivery-list\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA adds five companies, including Blue Origin and SpaceX, to moon delivery list"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Blue
Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon lander is designed for deliveries to the moon. (Blue Origin Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture is among five companies that have just been cleared to deliver payloads to the moon for NASA. So is Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, which is offering its Starship super-rocket for lunar trips.<\/p>\n

Sierra Nevada Corp., Ceres Robotics and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems round out today\u2019s list, joining nine other commercial teams that were put into NASA\u2019s \u201ccatalog\u201d for lunar delivery services a year ago. NASA has already picked two of those teams, headed by Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, to put science experiments on the moon in 2021.<\/p>\n

The next delivery orders in what NASA calls the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS, are likely to call for payloads to be launched by 2022, said Steve Clarke, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA\u2019s science mission directorate. One payload that\u2019s certain to be on the list is NASA\u2019s VIPER rover, which is destined to look for signs of water near the moon\u2019s south pole in late 2022.<\/p>\n

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Starship should be ready to put as much as 100 metric tons\u2019 worth of payload on the moon\u2019s surface by then. \u201cThat capability far exceeds the mass that CLPS was looking for, but we think that brings pretty extraordinary capability to NASA, both for the CLPS program and others,\u201d Shotwell said today during a teleconference with reporters.<\/p>\n

The four other newcomers to the CLPS list said their readiness would largely depend on what NASA needed to send by when. Sierra Nevada Corp. is aiming for 2022, and Ceres Robotics is targeting 2023.<\/p>\n

In the past, Blue Origin executives their Blue Moon lander could be ready to deliver as much as 6.5 metric tons of payload to the moon by 2023. But Brent Sherwood, Blue Origin\u2019s vice president of advanced development programs, avoided giving a date today. \u201cWe\u2019re honored to join this community of 14 diverse providers that are taking us back to the moon, and we are going, so this is really exciting times. \u2026 We\u2019re really anxious to get back to the moon to stay,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin is already offering Blue Moon for NASA\u2019s first crewed lunar landing in 2024. SpaceX is also thought to be offering Starship for crewed landings.<\/p>\n