NASA successfully deployed this model to ferry crews and cargo to the ISS.Įncouraged by a business-friendly White House that pushed for a 2024 Moon landing, NASA expanded its use of public-private partnerships beyond low-Earth orbit, creating new programs for commercial lunar payload deliveries of scientific instrumentation and technology demonstration missions.
The total cost to NASA is therefore fixed-any cost overruns are shouldered by the companies.Ĭonversely, if companies can deliver their landers for less than the cost of the contract, the company retains the difference as a profit. NASA in turn can purchase ongoing landing services from these providers. Rather than building a lunar lander in-house the way it does with SLS and Orion, NASA opted to pay space companies a fixed price to build their own lunar landers, which the companies will own. From there, astronauts can conduct science and transfer to lunar landers. Orion in the future will also dock with the Gateway, a small space station in lunar orbit. NASA’s Artemis program will use the SLS to blast astronauts to lunar orbit aboard Orion, where they will meet up with a previously-emplaced lunar lander to travel to the surface and back.
#Artful lander full
Both vehicles are being developed using classic “cost-plus” contracting, where NASA pays for the full cost of development, even if costs rise far above initial estimates. In 2010, the Obama administration canceled Constellation, but two key pieces of the program survived: the Orion crew capsule and a rocket that became what is now the Space Launch System, or SLS. Bush announced what became the agency’s back-to-the-Moon Constellation program. NASA has officially been trying to change that since 2004, when President George W. Humans have not traveled beyond Earth orbit since the Apollo program ended in 1972. NASA will gain a lunar lander at a fraction of the cost of the Apollo-era Lunar Module, and SpaceX-a private entity-would gain independent access to the lunar surface, a locale previously the domain of a single nation.Īnd in the same fell swoop, both organizations would step toward Mars. If Starship succeeds in returning humans to the lunar surface, it will be the ultimate vindication of the public-private partnership model. NASA now places the lives of its astronauts in the hands of SpaceX to reach the ISS, relies on the company to supply the space station, and places its precious scientific missions atop their rockets. In the past 20 years they have grown from a small startup to the world’s premier aerospace company, launching cargo and astronauts at a pace commensurate with national space agencies. By selecting only SpaceX, NASA is putting all its eggs in one basket.īut SpaceX has previously delivered on its NASA contracts. This decision is not without risk: NASA previously selected at least two companies to provide commercial cargo and crew services to the International Space Station in order to preserve competition, control cost, and ensure redundancy.
By choosing Starship for the Moon, NASA is investing in the Starship program itself, providing SpaceX with a cash infusion for the same technology and systems it needs to get to the Red Planet-a true “Moon-to-Mars” strategy if there ever was one. Investing in Starship will help NASA return to the Moon, but it will also do something more consequential. NASA says there is still a chance that mission could happen in 2024, although the agency is currently conducting a review of the entire Aretmis program. Under the terms of the award, SpaceX will fly Starship to the lunar surface without a crew at least once before transporting astronauts. To develop Starship for the Moon, NASA will pay no more than $2.9 billion to SpaceX over the next few years, money that will be matched and possibly exceeded by funds from SpaceX itself. NASA last week announced it selected SpaceX’s Starship to land humans on the Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis program.
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