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NASA announced last Thursday (30) the three companies chosen to develop the design of the Artemis mission landing system, which will take astronauts to the Moon in 2024. SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics were selected, Boeing, the partner The agency’s traditional space flight was left out.
For this step, NASA will allocate US $ 967 million, which will be distributed among the companies led by Elon Musk (SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin), in addition to Dynetics. In the coming months, they will work together with the engineers of the US space agency, in the evaluation and improvement of the projects.
In February 2021, the agency will choose one or two of the projects submitted, to conduct additional tests of the landing system, which is the final piece of Artemis. The mission architecture already includes the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
The projects chosen have important differences.Source: NASA / Disclosure
Artemis’s mission will mark man’s return to the Moon after more than 50 years. The ambitious project, which should include the first woman to step on the moon, aims to establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on the satellite.
The chosen projects
The three landing systems chosen by NASA for this evaluation step are quite different. The SpaceX project, for example, focuses on the massive Starship probe, which could carry up to 100 tons of cargo to the Moon’s surface.
In the case of Blue Origin, the three-stage system includes a downhill vehicle, an uphill vehicle, and a transfer stage. The model, similar to the lander for the Apollo mission, was developed in association with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
The Dynetics project, on the other hand, consists of a single structure, with no separate ascent and descent steps. The spacecraft itself would be responsible for landing and taking off from the satellite floor.
