Within days, NASA is expected to select a winner from a roster of nine eligible companies to try and become the first commercial entity to accomplish a soft landing on the moon with a robotic spacecraft.
The privately-developed probe would be the vanguard in a series of unpiloted missions intended to deliver science instruments to the lunar surface and prepare for a human expedition as soon as 2024, the year by which the Trump administration has directed NASA to again land astronauts on the moon.
Following a model pioneered by NASA’s commercial cargo and crew contracts in support of the International Space Station, the space agency is turning to the private sector to ferry experiments, scientific instrumentation and other equipment to the lunar surface.
Steve Clarke, the deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s science mission directorate, said Tuesday that agency officials are on track to award a contract, or task order, to industry for the first robotic lander mission by the end of May.
NASA selected nine companies in November to compete for up to $2.6 billion in contracts over the next decade to ferry scientific instruments and tech demo payloads to the moon aboard commercial robotic landers.
So NASA has a competition with the intention to design, build, and launch and soft land science experiments on the moon. The ultimate plan is to use these experiments to build toward a manned landing in 2024. Their stated intent is to launch these experiments twice per year, every year, between now and 2028 but it will be the responsibility of the winners to contract with a launch provider to do so.
But the thing that puzzles me, is that if we're launching rockets to the moon twice a year from now until 2024, why will we need a "new" moon rocket (SLS) in 2024? And, if we're still flying payloads and landers to the moon twice a year between 2024 and 2028, why do we need a new moon rocket that only flies once every 18 to 24 months? With all that capability in place, and in regular use, will NASA *need* SLS at all?
https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/05/21/nasa-to-soon-announce-first-commercial-lunar-lander-mission/
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