NASA’s plans to rope in companies to collect samples of moon dirt for its lunar base plans and hand them over have been in the pipeline for quite some time. NASA’s goal is to complete the retrieval and transfer of ownership before 2024, the year the agency is aiming to land the next humans, including the first woman, on the moon as part of the Artemis program.
That presence will require robots working ahead of a manned landing, as well as alongside humans. One of the robots NASA wants to send is similar to the excavators used on Earth in mining and construction. It would collect lunar soil, called regolith, and be able to move it around as well. The goal of these excavators is to transport the regolith to a lunar-based processing plant and extract hydrogen, oxygen, and water that can be used on life support systems for astronauts on the moon.
To this effect, NASA announced on September 10, 2020 that it was opening up a solicitation to commercial companies to propose how they would collect such lunar regolith, provide images and locations of it to NASA, and eventually deliver it to the agency.
The competition is not limited to U.S. companies and NASA may award more than one contract. The goal is to get surface samples, between 50 and 500 grams of moon soil, from a variety of locations on the moon to analyse where the best place would be to build up a lunar base infrastructure for a continued presence on the moon.
NASA is requesting firms to quote a price in their response to the solicitation, and the percentage payouts would be based on their proposed price. The contract will pay out 10 per cent when it’s awarded, another 10 per cent when the company launches its mission, and the final 80 per cent when the goods are delivered. Bids are due on October 9, 2020.
When the transfer is complete, the lunar soil will be the sole property of NASA. The collection and transfer will be a proof of concept for conducting space commerce on the moon. Then commercial space innovators and entrepreneurs can identify new ways to invest in human exploration and development on the moon.
Courtesy: Orlando Sentinel, Sept 13, 2020