As part of NASA’s ramp to its Artemis Moon mission in 2024, little technology is being explored by private companies for development. The latest request is for a collection of lunar samples, any sample will do, and bidding is open to any business entity in the world. On Thursday (September 10), NASA’s proposal came out and was followed by a NASA administrator Jim Brydenstein with a blog post.
“As we at NASA work aggressively to meet our near-term goal of landing the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024, our Artemis program is focused on taking steps that will establish safe and sustainable lunar research architecture.” Bridenstein explained. “Today, we are taking a decisive step forward by requesting commercial companies to provide a proposal for the storage of space resources.”
The technique desired by NASA seems very straightforward: go to the moon and dig some rocks and / or surface regulation, send a picture proving it, then transfer the ownership of said rocks / regolith to NASA. The excavation company doesn’t even have to take the sample back to Earth – NASA will take care of it too. The only downside seems to be the timeline, which means that this feat should be completed before the launch of Artemis in the year 2024. Will the agency plan to select its lunar property using the space agency astronauts? Rather than being limited to where the Earth will arrive, considering that samples can be collected anywhere on the moon, perhaps not.
The amount of the award was not specified, but some details about the distribution are provided. When the contract is awarded, NASA will pay 10% of the total purchase amount, 10% after the launch of the mission and the remaining 80% after the collection is completed.
“The requirements we outlined are that the company will collect lunar“ dirt ”or a small amount of rocks from any location on the lunar surface, provide an image of the NASA collection and stored material, as well as store data. Bridenstein elaborates, and “in-place” the lunar regolith or rocks owned by NASA. “After the transfer of ownership, the collected material becomes NASA’s only asset for our use … NASA’s goal is to reclaim and transfer ownership before 2024.”
It’s a bit of an unusual challenge at first glance – just open and finish. However, NASA plans to return samples of its 2020 Mars Perseverance Rover (currently on its way to the Red Planet) that will soon be excavated. The technology for lunar samples and Mars samples will almost certainly overlap, so invest in a lunar sampling mission.
NASA has also asked business partners to help with shuttle payloads to the moon in a proposal released a few days before this latest sample mission. At the same time, it seems that things could progress very well towards humans leaving Earth’s orbit after a stalemate of almost 50 years.
