NASA awards contracts for Artemis moon mission - Washington Examiner

NASA took a step forward Friday in its efforts to get the U.S. back to the moon.

The agency awarded contracts worth more than $250 million to Astrobotic, OrbitBeyond, and Intuitive Machines to send payloads to the surface of the moon by 2021, according to Space News.

This new mission is part of the Artemis program, a two-phase lunar exploration plan to speed-land astronauts on the moon and establish a sustained human presence on its surface, according to a NASA news release.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted Friday, “We are going to the Moon — to stay.”

Bridenstine said that the companies will become commercial partners who will deliver science instruments to the lunar surface. The first to fly will be OrbitBeyond in September 2020, according to Fox News.

NASA said one of the companies proposed sending payloads to a “scientifically intriguing dark spot on the Moon by July 2021," while another is sending technology to a lava plain, and the third to a large crater.

The Artemis program aims to land the next man and first woman on the moon by 2024.

“These landers are just the beginning of exciting commercial partnerships that will bring us closer to solving the many scientific mysteries of our Moon, our solar system, and beyond,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a statement. “What we learn will not only change our view of the universe, but also prepare our human missions to the Moon and eventually Mars.”

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