The National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) released a proposal requesting a second human lunar lander for the Artemis program to join the Starshiplander under development by SpaceX.
The agency released the proposal call on Sept. 16, nearly six months after announcing their plans for the SLD or the Sustaining Lunar Development project, and releasing a draft call for proposals for industry feedback, according to Space News.
NASA set a deadline for receiving proposals on Nov. 15. The award is expected in May 2023.
The process will choose the selected company that will develop a lander that would support missions after Artemis 3, the first crewed landing of the Artemis project that will be done by SpaceX no earlier than 2025.
The winning company will take privileges to an uncrewed landing followed by a crewed landing no earlier than the Artemis 5 missions in the late 2020s, then be eligible, along with SpaceX, to complete the lunar landing service contracts for later space missions.
The Privileges For the Winning Company
According to the manager of the Human Landing System (HLS), Lisa Watson-Morgan, the work done will be done under this solicitation, in addition to the current lander development and studies that will take place.
Watson-Morgan also mentioned that the solicitation would help build the foundation for long-term deep space exploration at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, she said in a statement about the release of the call for proposals.
Last March 2022, the space agency billed Sustaining Lunar Development as fulfilling a commitment to Congress that will have competition in the overall HLS program. Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, said that he promised competition, and he's serving it during the announcement of the said project.
The chosen company will have to demonstrate that their lander can meet the requirements for the notional lunar lander mission called a Polar Sortie Mission.
The said mission will carry two astronauts to the lunar surface for a stay of up to 6.25 days to support four planned and one contingency moonwalk.
Polar Excursion Mission
A later polar Excursion Mission will require the lander to transport four astronauts to the lunar surface and stay there for 33 days. The mission will assume there are other assets at the landing sites, like a habitat where astronauts will stay during the mission, and thus require only a single roundtrip moonwalk from the lander to the space habitat.
The competing companies can also show how their lander can support short-stay missions to regions other than the south pole of the moon as well as be used to transport cargo.
The original HLS campaign, won by SpaceX in April 2021, also included bids from teams led by Blue Origin and Dynetics. Those companies protested the said award to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which rejected the protests three months later.
Blue Origin then filed suit in the federal court, which ruled against the company to allow NASA to proceed with SpaceX.
The companies Dynetics and Blue Origin formally announced their desire to bid on the Sustaining Lunar Development program. However, Blue Origin does have an "Artemis Lander" placeholder page on its website.
It is also unclear if Blue Origin's collaborators on its "National Team" that bids on HLS that, includes Draper, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, will be joining Blue Origin again in a new competition. Officials with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman were noncommittal shortly after the announcement of the campaign in March, saying at the time they were studying options.
According to Robert Lightfoot, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Space, they're looking at SLD, but not an opportunity for them, in an interview on Aug. 28 before the first Artemis 1 launch attempt.
Lightfoot said that the company had decided what companies they would work with on the proposal but wasn't ready to disclose them.
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