NASA has awarded research contracts to study the logistical issues for a long-term human presence on the Moon, despite the uncertainty that the current administration will continue to pursue the Artemis moon exploration campaign.
On January 23, NASA announced that it had selected nine companies for contracts totaling $24 million to study logistics. This is necessaryThis is necessary for the next human missions to the Moon, when the agency expects larger crews to spend more time on the lunar surface.
The nine companies selected to receive the awards are Blue Origin, Intuitive Machines, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, and MDA Space, as well as Moonprint, Pratt Miller Defense, Sierra Space, and Special Aerospace Services. NASA said the research includes carrier and handling logistics, ground cargo mobility, and debris management.
“These contracts are a catalyst for the development of critical capabilities for Artemis missions and the day-to-day needs of astronauts in long-term lunar surface exploration,” said Nujud Meransi, deputy assistant administrator for strategy and architecture in the agency’s research directorate.
NASA made the awards using a broad announcement from its agency’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (NextSTEP-2) program. The contract vehicle is used for various efforts, from crewing the Human Landing System landers for Artemis to supporting commercial space stations.
NASA said this new research, officially known as NextSTEP-2 Appendix R, was launched to address gaps identified in developing the agency’s Moon-to-Mars architecture. The overall architecture lacked an integrated ground logistics architecture and unmanned ground mobility systems for assets on the lunar surface, NASA said in the NextSTEP solicitation.
The competition has a limit of $1 million for each of the seven research topics and a total bid limit of $4 million if companies submit proposals for multiple topics. The study is expected to be completed in about a year.
“This is an important step towards a sustainable return to the Moon that, together with our commercial partners, will lead to innovation and expand our knowledge for future lunar missions aimed at Mars,” Meransi said.
However, the research comes amid ongoing speculation that the new Trump administration may significantly update or even cancel Artemis so that NASA can accelerate its efforts to send humans to Mars.
President Trump briefly mentioned this goal in his inaugural address on January 20.
“We will continue our manifest destiny to the stars by launching American astronauts to plant stars and stripes on the planet Mars,” he said but did not provide a timetable.
Given the technical challenges associated with such missions, a human landing on Mars during his administration is virtually impossible. And launch opportunities that open up only about every two years.
Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and a close adviser to Trump has been a vocal supporter of human missions to Mars and, increasingly, has criticized Artemis.
“In terms of space, the Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient because it is a program to increase the number of jobs, not a program to maximize results,” he wrote on social media on December 25. “Something completely new is needed.”
Concerns about Artemis are reportedly one of the reasons why the Trump administration chose Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, as acting administrator rather than Jim Free, the agency’s deputy administrator and a senior civil servant.
Industry sources said that while associate administrators served as acting administrators during the last presidential transition, the new Trump administration did not like Free’s comments in support of Artemis. This included a speech before the election where he called for “consistency of purpose” in NASA’s human spaceflight program. Arguing that while the agency could improve upon Artemis, “we need to keep that destination in terms of human spaceflight.”