(CNN) – SpaceX has won a $ 2.89 billion contract with NASA to build the spacecraft that will take astronauts to the moon for the first time in five decades.
The fixed-price contract is an important vote of confidence for Elon Musk’s rocket company, as the space agency takes on much of the responsibility for its pilot space flight pilot program, known as Artemis, on SpaceX.
Friday’s announcement is a blow to Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos, which had proposed working as a “national team” with corporate giants such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to design and build a landing module per month, and for Alabama-dinynetics, which presented its own proposal. But in the end, SpaceX won with its offer to use a spacecraft that the company is already developing on its own in South Texas.
This vehicle, called the Starship, is also the mainstay of Musk’s personal goal to land the first humans on Mars. Test flights of the early Starship prototypes ended in explosions, but the company is quickly building new test vehicles.
Other contracts
Last year, NASA announced three different contracts for the development of the monthly landing module, which were awarded to the “National Team” of SpaceX and Blue Origin, with the expectation that each of the companies will work to materialize the operational vehicles and compete. each other in terms of price and technology.
Lisa Watson-Morgan, director of NASA’s Human Landing System or HLS program, told a news conference Friday that NASA “supported each partner by providing design support, expert and evidence analysis” for all those suppliers in that phase.
Watson-Morgan added that NASA will continue to monitor closely as SpaceX continues to develop, “ensuring that this system will be safe for our astronauts.”
Boeing is building another key element for the Artemis: Space Launch System or SLS program, a giant rocket designed to carry the Orion crew capsule to the moon.
This is the rocket that will transport the astronauts into lunar orbit, and then the crew will travel to the Gateway space station, and from there, the ship will transport the astronauts to the lunar surface, according to Watson-Morgan.
Frustration of the space community
Many members of the spacecraft expressed frustration that NASA had joined the SLS program, believing that the SpaceX spacecraft would theoretically be able to complete the entire mission. In addition, the SLS development program is billions of dollars over budget and years ago.
NASA said SpaceX will also have to conduct an unmanned demonstration mission, landing the astral spacecraft on the moon before the astronauts fly aboard.
Friday’s surprise announcement that SpaceX will be the sole contract holder comes after the space agency struggled for two years to persuade Congress to adequately fund the monthly landing module development program.
The space agency confirmed that price was a major factor in its decision to continue with a single contractor.
Collaboration hand in hand
Artemis’ contract announcement indicates that NASA is willing to place immense trust in SpaceX, which has had a history of clashes with the space agency over its missile development strategy, which is to go fast and break things. .
But in recent years, the company has worked closely with NASA on important achievements, most notably manned spaceflights in Dragon SpaceX vehicles, which began last year and transported astronauts on two flights to the Space Station. Internationally, with a third scheduled for next week. . Crew Dragon marked the return of manned spaceflight from US soil for the first time since 2011.
SpaceX was also previously selected to build another version of the Dragon to transport cargo to Stargate, the space station that NASA plans to put into orbit around the Moon to support a future lunar base where astronauts can live. and worked for long periods.