NASA Selects 11 US Companies to Advance Human Lunar Landers

   By Stephen Nakrosis

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Thursday said it has chosen 11 companies to build prototypes for its next missions to the Moon.

NASA's Artemis program will work to send American astronauts, including the first female, back to the Moon by 2024.

The companies involved in the program are Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc. (AJRD), Blue Origin, Boeing Co. (BA), Dynetics, Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT), Masten Space Systems, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, OrbitBeyond, Sierra Nevada Corp., SpaceX and SSL.

The total award amount for all companies is $45.5 million, the agency said.

In an effort to expedite work, NASA said, it intends to authorize partners to start a portion of the work while negotiations toward contract award continue in parallel.

Through Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships, or NextSTEP, contracts, the companies will, over the next six months, work on prototypes of vehicles to carry astronauts to the lunar surface and safely return them. NextSTEP is a public/private partnership program, and companies are required to contribute at least 20% of the total project cost.

--Write to Stephen Nakrosis at stephen.nakrosis@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 16, 2019 17:40 ET (21:40 GMT)

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