On Friday, NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX to build a new capsule to land astronauts on the Moon, the latest in a series of Moon-related victories for the company controlled by Elon Musk.
SpaceX beat two rivals for the Human Landing System lunar taxi that will take astronauts to the lunar surface from the orbiting capsule as early as 2024. The contract is part of a larger Artemis program run by the National Landing Administration. ‘Aeronautics and Space to explore and develop deep space. This program depends more on the private sector and trade finance than previous efforts.
The deal with the lander adds to the products SpaceX is developing, with recent rounds of funding raising its valuation by nearly $ 100 billion as it pursues a mix of new rockets, space taxis and a series of hundreds of satellites for military and commercial customers.
SpaceX is already flying astronauts on behalf of NASA to and from the International Space Station and is developing a large, large rocket called Super Heavy to launch the Starship vehicle on which its lunar lander is based. The spacecraft has made a series of test flights from Texas, some of which have ended in failure after exploding on landing.
NASA plans to use a new rocket manufactured by Boeing Co. for a lunar mission known as Artemis 1 as early as November. It would fly around the moon before returning to Earth the capsule of the Orion crew produced by Lockheed Martin Corp.