NASA’s New Partners in Commercial Lunar Payload Delivery Services (CLPS)

The CLPS initiative will allow NASA to ferry a number of planned payloads to the moon over the course of the muti-year endeavor concluding in 2028. The $2.6 billion program has selected 5 more companies to bid on the host of contracts being awarded. With these additional companies, the total number has now increased to 13 and includes the following:

• • Astrobotic Technology, Inc.: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • Blue Origin: Kent, Washington (new)
  • Ceres Robotics: Palo Alto, California (new)
  • Deep Space Systems: Littleton, Colorado
  • Draper: Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Firefly Aerospace, Inc.: Cedar Park, Texas
  • Intuitive Machines, LLC: Houston, Texas
  • Lockheed Martin Space: Littleton, Colorado
  • Masten Space Systems, Inc.: Mojave, California
  • Moon Express: Cape Canaveral, Florida
  • Sierra Nevada Corp.: Sparks, Nevada (new)
  • SpaceX: Hawthorne, California (new)
  • Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Irvine, California (new)

While NASA has already awarded three contracts to support CLPS thus far, Orbit Beyond’s contract was to develop a lander for 2020 mission in which it has since cancelled the contract. Below are renderings of what the various companies are pitching to deliver payloads to the moon’s surface.

Video credit: NASA