If NASA gets their wish, it will be more than one company going to the moon. Jeff Bezos has a lot of space dreams.
NASA was looking to hire two companies to provide the landers to take its astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon as part of its Artemis program. In April last year, the agency decided to give only one contract to the company.
NASA officials said that other companies would be able to compete for future missions.
Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said on Wednesday that the space agency would soon announce a competition to develop a second lunar lander.
I promised competition, Mr. Nelson said.
Mr. Nelson said that NASA's moon missions would be shared with the second company.
The second company would receive financing for two landings, one without astronauts to demonstrate the abilities of the craft, then a second mission with astronauts.
Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, said that the goal was for a crewed mission to occur in the year 2077.
The lunar landers follow NASA's recent approach of seeking fixed-price contracts, setting certain requirements but encouraging innovation by allowing private companies to come up with their own designs to meet the agency's needs and compete on price. The approach led to the creation of the capsule that ferries astronauts to and from the International Space Station. In the past, companies were paid a lot of money to carry out the plans for NASA's rockets and spaceships.
The plan for a second lunar landers hinges on Congress providing money to pay for it. The president's budget proposal for fiscal year 2023 will be released early next week, and Mr. Nelson will not discuss how much the program will cost until then.
The two companies that lost out on the competition, Blue Origin and Dynetics, filed protests with the Government Accountability Office. Blue Origin's proposal was twice the price of the other two.
Both companies were ruled against by the G.A.O.
NASA was sued in federal court by Blue Origin. It lost again.
Blue Origin and Dynetics have a second chance, as do other companies that would like to submit proposals. The manager for NASA's human landing system program said the agency would make a decision on a second lander early next year.
Dynetics was pleased to learn of NASA's plans and was looking forward to reviewing the upcoming call for proposals.
Blue Origin said in a statement that it is thrilled that NASA is creating competition by procuring a second human lunar landing system.
The desire for more ambitious missions on the moon is reflected in the requirements for the second lander.
NASA would negotiate with SpaceX under its existing contract to build a lander meeting the new requirements.
NASA's journey to sending astronauts back to the moon has been long and winding, and the current target for adding new American footprints on the moon appears unrealistically optimistic.
NASA has been making progress.
The Space Launch System is at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but it will only be there for a short time. Next month, NASA will conduct a dress rehearsal of a countdown, but not ignite the engines. The Vehicle Assembly Building is essentially a huge tall garage for rockets and will be used for final preparations of a crewless test launch called Artemis 1 that could occur as early as this summer. It would send a capsule to the moon.
The first Artemis mission will be the first with astronauts in the crew capsule. The flight would enter the moon's atmosphere before returning to Earth.
During Artemis 3, the first moon landing would occur. Four astronauts would take a capsule to the moon and dock with a spaceship, which would be waiting for them. Two astronauts, the first woman and the first person of color, would move to the moon's south pole and stay there for about a week, according to NASA.
The prototypes were launched from the site in South Texas to an altitude of about six miles to show how it would land vertically after re-entering the atmosphere. After four failed attempts, one of the prototypes landed. The first flight of a Starship is planned for the coming months.
During the Trump administration, the goal of returning astronauts to the moon was revived. The Biden administration has insisted that the goal is not the end but the beginning of larger human explorations of the moon and eventually out into the solar system.
NASA is trying to turn that hope into a continuing program after Wednesday's announcement.
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