NASA has signed a USD 112 million contract with Firefly Aerospace. It provides for the landing of a spacecraft with a payload on the far side of the Moon.
Contract for sending cargo to the Moon
On Tuesday, March 14, it became known that NASA signed a contract with Firefly Aerospace providing for the delivery to the Moon of cargo necessary for the implementation of the Artemis program, the result of which should be the creation of a permanent base on our moon.
The contract amount is 112 million dollars. It provides for the landing of an unmanned spacecraft on the far side of the Moon in 2026. According to the agency’s representatives, its development was carried out with the active participation of specialists from the European Space Agency.
The contract is an integral initiative of Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), under which NASA encourages commercial companies to build monthly modules and use them to send various auxiliary equipment necessary for the normal deployment of Artemis.
Last autumn, a similar contract worth USD 73 million was awarded to a software developer for Draper landers. These modules should make the first landing on the far side of the Moon in 2025.
Firefly Aerospace
As for Firefly Aerospace, it has a long and difficult path to space success.Founded almost ten years ago in 2017, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. But then the company was saved by Ukrainian businessman Maxim Polyakov.
In 2021, NASA allocated Firefly Cedar Park, Texas, 93.3 million US dollars to conduct a complex of 10 scientific research and technological demonstrations to the Moon in 2023.
The updated company began to develop rapidly and in October 2022 carried out the first fully successful launch of its Alpha rocket. After that, the US military and Northrop Grumman announced cooperation with it.
According to www.reuters.com
Follow us on Twitter to get the most interesting space news in time
https://twitter.com/ust_magazine
