Commercial Lunar Payload Services

NASA has been planning the exploration and use of natural lunar resources for many years. A variety of exploration, science, and technology objectives that could be addressed by regularly sending instruments, experiments and other small payloads to the Moon have been identified by NASA.[3]

When the concept study on the Resource Prospector rover was cancelled in April 2018, NASA officials explained that lunar surface exploration will continue in the future, but using commercial lander services under a new CLPS program.[5][6] Later that April, NASA launched the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program as the first step in the solicitation for flights to the Moon.[3][4][7] In April 2018, CLPS issued a Draft Request for Proposal,[4] and in September 2018 the actual CLPS Request for Proposal was issued.[8] The text of the formal solicitation and selected contractors are here:[8]

On 29 November 2018, NASA announced the first nine companies that will be allowed to bid on contracts,[9] which are indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts with a combined maximum contract value of $2.6 billion during the next 10 years.[9]

In February 2018 NASA issued a solicitation for Lunar Surface Instrument and Technology Payloads that may become CLPS customers. Proposals were due by November 2018 and January 17, 2019. NASA makes yearly calls for proposals.[10][11]

On May 31, 2019, NASA announced a list of awards, featuring Astrobotic, of Pittsburgh, Pa., $79.5 million; Intuitive Machines, of Houston, Texas, $77 million; and OrbitBeyond, $97 million; to launch their Moon landers.[12] However, Orbit Beyond dropped out of this contract in July 2019 (with NASA acknowledging termination of contract on 29 July 2019), but remains a contractor able to bid on future missions.[13]

On 1 July 2019, a US$5.6 million contract was awarded to Astrobotic and its partner Carnegie Mellon University to develop MoonRanger, a 13 kg (29 lb) rover to carry payloads on the Moon for NASA's CLPS.[14][15] Launch is envisioned for either 2021 or 2022.[15][16] The rover will carry science payloads yet to be determined and developed by other providers, that will focus on scouting and creating 3D maps of a polar region for signs of water ice or lunar pits for entrances to Moon caves.[16][17] The rover would operate mostly autonomously for up to one week.[17]

On 18 November 2019, NASA added five contractors to the group of companies eligible to bid to deliver large payloads to the lunar surface under the CLPS program: Blue Origin, Ceres Robotics, Sierra Nevada Corporation, SpaceX, and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.[18]

On 8 April 2020, NASA announced it had awarded the fourth (after Astrobotic's, Intuitive Machines' and OrbitBeyond's awards) CLPS contract for Masten Space Systems. The contract, worth US$75.9 million, is for Masten's XL-1 lunar lander to deliver payloads from NASA and other customers to the south pole of the Moon in late 2022.[19]

On 11 June 2020 NASA awarded Astrobotic Technology its second CLPS contract. The mission will be the first flight of Astrobotic's larger Griffin lander, delivering NASA's VIPER resource prospecting lunar rover to the Lunar south pole.[20] Griffin weighs 450 kg, the VIPER rover approximately 1,000 pounds (about 450 kg), and the award is for $199.5 M[20] (this covers Griffin lander and launch costs too). The mission is scheduled for November 2024.[21]

On 16 October 2020[22] NASA awarded Intuitive Machines their second CLPS contract for Intuitive Machines Mission 2 (IM-2). The contract was worth approximately $47 million. Using Nova-C lander, the mission will land a drill (PRIME-1) combined with a mass spectrometer to the Lunar south pole, to attempt harvesting ice from below the surface. The mission is scheduled for December 2022, using a Falcon 9 rocket.

On 4 February 2021, NASA awarded a CLPS contract to Firefly Aerospace, of Cedar Park, Texas, worth approximately US$93.3 million, to deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023 (later delayed to 2024). This was the sixth award (seventh if one counts the OrbitBeyond award that was later cancelled) for lunar surface delivery (that is, for a lunar lander) under the CLPS initiative. This was the first delivery awarded to Firefly Aerospace, which will provide the lunar delivery service using its Blue Ghost lander, which the company designed and developed at its Cedar Park facility.[23]

The next (7th, not counting OrbitBeyond contract) CLPS contract was awarded by NASA on 17 November 2021 to Intuitive Machines, their 3rd award. Their Nova-C lander was contracted to land four NASA payloads (about 92 kg in total) to study a lunar feature called Reiner Gamma. The mission was known as IM-3 mission and was planned to land on the Moon in 2024. The contract value was $77.5 million and under the contract, Intuitive Machines was responsible for end-to-end delivery services, including payload integration, delivery from Earth to the surface of the Moon, and payload operations.[24]

On July 21, 2022, NASA announced that it had awarded a CLPS contract (8th, not counting OrbitBeyond) worth $73 million to a team led by Draper. The mission targets Schrödinger Basin on the farside of the Moon and at the time was scheduled for 2025. The mission lander, called SERIES-2 by Draper, will deliver to Schrödinger Basin three experiments to collect seismic data, measure the heat flow and electrical conductivity of the lunar subsurface and measure electromagnetic phenomena created by the interaction of the solar wind and plasma with the lunar surface. This mission is the first CLPS mission to target the lunar farside, and aims to be the second landing of all time (after China's Chang’e-4) to the Moon's farside. The mission will also develop and deploy two data relay satellites, a must for missions in the lunar farside. Many companies are involved in the mission with Draper being the prime contractor, including ispace.[25] On September 29, 2023, ispace announced that the SERIES-2 lander had been comprehensively redesigned and renamed as APEX 1.0, causing the mission to be delayed to 2026.[26]

Masten Space Systems filed for bankruptcy in July 2022,[27] with nearly all of their assets sold to Astrobotic Technology.[28] This led to the cancellation of Masten's CLPS mission.

On March 14, 2023, NASA awarded Firefly a $112 million task order (8th CLPS contract, not counting OrbitBeyond or Masten Space Systems) for a mission to the far side of the Moon using the second Blue Ghost lander, which is expected to launch in 2026.[29]

The lunar south pole region is of special interest because of the occurrence of water ice in permanently shadowed areas inside craters, near constant solar power at the crater rims, and abundant metals and oxygen in the regolith.[30][31]

The competitive nature of the CLPS program is expected to reduce the cost of lunar exploration, accelerate a robotic return to the Moon, sample return, resource prospecting in the south polar region, and promote innovation and growth of related commercial industries.[32] The payload development program is called Development and Advancement of Lunar Instrumentation (DALI), and the payload goals are exploration, in situ resource utilization (ISRU), and lunar science. The first instruments were expected to be selected by Summer 2019,[4] and the flight opportunities were expected to start in 2021.[32][4]

Multiple contracts will be issued, and the early payloads will likely be small because of the limited capacity of the initial commercial landers.[7] The first landers and rovers will be technology demonstrators on hardware such as precision landing/hazard avoidance, power generation (solar and RTGs), in situ resource utilization (ISRU), cryogenic fluid management, autonomous operations and sensing, and advanced avionics, mobility, mechanisms, and materials.[4] This program requires that only US launch vehicles can launch the spacecraft.[4] The mass of the landers and rovers can range from miniature to 1,000 kg (2,200 lb),[33] with a 500 kg (1,100 lb) lander targeted to launch in 2022.[32]

The Draft Request for Proposal's covering letter states that the contracts will last up to 10 years. As NASA's need to send payloads to the lunar surface (and other cislunar destinations) arises it will issue Firm-Fixed Price 'task orders' that the approved prime contractors can bid for. A Scope Of Work will be issued with each task order. The CLPS proposals are being evaluated against five Technical Accessibility Standards.[4]

NASA is assuming a cost of one million dollars per kilogram delivered to the lunar surface. (This figure may be revised after a lunar landing when the actual costs are available.)[34]

Astrobotic Peregrine

Z-01 lander and rover

Nova-C lander by Intuitive Machines

The companies selected are considered "main contractors" that can sub-contract projects to other companies of their choice. The first companies granted the right to bid on CLPS contracts were chosen in 2018.[9][35][8]

On 21 May 2019, three companies were awarded lander contracts: Astrobotic Technology, Intuitive Machines, OrbitBeyond.[12]

On 29 July 2019, NASA announced that it had granted OrbitBeyond's request to be released from this specific contract, citing "internal corporate challenges."[36]

On 18 November 2019, NASA added five new contractors to the group of companies who are eligible to bid to send large payloads to the surface of the Moon with the CLPS program.[18]

On 8 April 2020, NASA selected Masten Space Systems for a mission to deliver and operate eight payloads – with nine science and technology instruments – to the Moon’s South Pole in 2022.[37][38][39] Masten Space Systems filed for bankruptcy in July 2022;[27][28] this led to the cancellation of Masten's CLPS mission.

On 4 February 2021, NASA awarded a CLPS contract to Firefly Aerospace for a mission deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023.[23]

On 21 July 2022, NASA announced that it had awarded a CLPS contract to Draper Laboratories.[25]

Notes:

The CLPS contracts for landers and lander missions do not include the payloads themselves. The payloads are developed under separate contracts either at NASA facilities or in commercial facilities. The CLPS landers provide landing, support services, and sample return as specified in each individual contract.

The first batch of science payloads are being developed in NASA facilities, due to the short time available before the first planned flights. Subsequent selections include payloads provided by universities and industry. Calls for payloads are planned to be released each year for additional opportunities.

• Slides from the Industrial Day on May 8, 2018