{"id":17929,"date":"2019-09-30T18:43:33","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T10:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-issues-its-fast-track-plan-to-get-two-commercial-lunar-landers-for-2024-2025\/"},"modified":"2019-09-30T18:43:33","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T10:43:33","slug":"nasa-issues-its-fast-track-plan-to-get-two-commercial-lunar-landers-for-2024-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-issues-its-fast-track-plan-to-get-two-commercial-lunar-landers-for-2024-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA issues its fast-track plan to get two commercial lunar landers for 2024-2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lunar
An artist\u2019s conception shows a lunar lander\u2019s ascent module blasting off from the moon. (NASA Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After two preliminary rounds, NASA today published its final call for industry proposals to have the first two landers capable of putting astronauts on the moon ready for 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s broad agency announcement, known as NextSTEP-2 Appendix H, makes clear that two different companies would be chosen to build human-capable landers. One of them would be used for the Artemis 3 mission, which aims to send two astronauts to and from the lunar surface in 2024. The other would be used for a demonstration mission in 2025.<\/p>\n

Those two missions would set the stage for putting an upgraded lander on the moon in 2026 to demonstrate a \u201csustainable\u201d approach to lunar exploration. That follow-up demonstration mission would serve as a \u201cprecursor to procuring lunar landing services as commercial services beginning in 2028,\u201d NASA said.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the kicker: The proposals for the first two landers are due in a month.<\/p>\n

It typically takes six to eight years to develop new types of space hardware. But NASA says a five-year timeline is doable because companies have been reviewing and commenting on two preliminary drafts of Appendix H since mid-July.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to best accelerate our return to the moon and prepare for Mars, we collaborated with industry on ideas to streamline the procurement process,\u201d Marshall Smith, director of the Human Lunar Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters, said in a news release. \u201cThe private sector was eager to provide us feedback throughout this process, and we received more than 1,150 comments on the draft solicitations issued over the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some companies have been working on lander proposals for far longer. Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, revealed back in 2017 that it was working on a lander design known as Blue Moon \u2014 and offered at the time to build it in partnership with NASA. Bezos himself unveiled a full-scale mockup of the lander in May.<\/p>\n