Soliciting Moon Landing Services.

NASA Preparing Call for Proposals for Commercial Lunar Landers

WASHINGTON - NASA is preparing to release a solicitation for the commercial transportation of payloads to the lunar surface, the latest step in the agency's efforts to help promote the development of commercial lunar landers. In testimony Sept.

From article, ("What we are now looking at doing is actually buying landed delivery services in the next fiscal year, of actually buying the first ability to land small payloads," he said. "We're preparing for the solicitation as we speak." [In Images: How Moon Express' Solar System Exploration Plan Works]

That solicitation, he said, is being informed by responses the agency received from an RFI it issued in early May. That RFI sought details from companies about their ability to deliver "instruments, experiments, or other payloads" through the next decade to support NASA's science, exploration and technology development needs.

That upcoming solicitation, Crusan said, would allow NASA to buy transportation for small instruments and technology demonstration payloads. "This is a sign of our growing confidence in the commercial industry," he said, "and managing risk without getting too large or too costly a payload for us on their maiden flights."

Two of those companies say they're ready to start launching lunar lander missions, for NASA and other customers, as soon as next year. Bob Richards, founder and chief executive of Moon Express, said his company was now planning a 2018 launch of its first lunar lander, an MX-1E spacecraft.

John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic Technology, said his company's Peregrine lander is set to make its first flight in 2019 as a secondary payload on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 mission.

A third company at the hearing, Blue Origin, has its sights on larger lunar landers. The company's Blue Moon concept, announced earlier this year, involves a system capable of landing up to several tons of cargo on the lunar surface. That vehicle would launch on NASA's Space Launch System or other vehicles, including Blue Origin's own New Glenn vehicle under development.

"The moon is not an off-ramp to Mars, it's an on-ramp to Mars," said Richards, arguing that lunar resources, accessed in partnerships between governments and companies, can help make space exploration and development sustainable. "If we go to space to stay, it has to pay."

Those lunar resources include water ice in permanently-shadowed regions of craters at the lunar poles. "Water is the oil of space," said George Sowers, a professor in the new space resources program at the Colorado School of Mines. "Strategically, we should view the poles of the moon as the next Persian Gulf.")

For More Info