The POT announced this Saturday that it will send a new exploration vehicle powered by nuclear energy, and made with parts that were used for similar devices sent to Marsto prepare the foundations for the first base on the moon.
NASA officials revealed in a press conference that they awarded Blue Origin a base contract of $94 million to transport the vehicle, called PROMISE, to the south pole of the Moon in 2028, where it will complete an 18-month mission that will be the first phase for the new base.
“We are building the lunar base mission by mission,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at the conference during the MAX POWER aerospace exhibition at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The six-wheeled rover will land on the Moon’s south pole to analyze the surface, subsurface and resource potential, and provide data to help select landing sites for crewed missions, as well as future infrastructure and exploration activities, according to NASA’s website.
The nuclear-powered explorer can operate during lunar nights, longer than Earth’s, and within permanently shadowed regions where ice is presumed to be present, a crucial element for a sustained human presence on the Moon.
1 / 22 | 📷 In images: this is how they captured the solar eclipse in different parts of the world. Between clouds and during a solar eclipse, the International Space Station crossed in front of the Sun in this image captured near Hodgdon, Maine. -Joel Kowsky
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California will build the rover from a combination of reserve flight components and engineering test models belonging to Curiosity and Perseverance, rovers that NASA sent to Mars.
The US space agency also revealed that it has selected eight companies for the second phase of its Commercial Lunar Cargo Services (CLPS) initiative that will be able to compete for contracts to provide transportation services to the moon, including building and operating lunar landing modules.
In addition to Bezos’ Blue Origin and magnate Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the chosen companies are Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems and Voyager Technologies.
The framework for the second phase of CLPS is a 10-year, multiple-award, indefinite-delivery framework contract with a combined maximum value of $10 billion.
1 / 29 | This was the return of the Orion capsule to Earth. Artemis II mission pilot Victor Glover descends from the recovery helicopter onto a Navy ship in the Pacific off the coast of California. -NASA
Isaacman assured that this Saturday’s announcements “expand almost all parts of the campaign” to establish the United States base on the Moon, which will serve as a foundation for future human crews to Mars, something that also involves the Artemis missions.
“When our astronauts return to the Moon, they will arrive finding the first elements of the lunar base already waiting for them on the surface,” he explained.