NASA announces plans to develop second Artemis moon lander

NASA has announced plans to support the development of a second astronaut moon lander. 

The agency asked American companies to propose lander concepts capable of transporting the astronauts between lunar orbit and the lunar surface for missions beyond Artemis III. 

The new landers will have the ability to dock to a lunar orbiting space station known as Gateway, increase crew capacity and transport more science and technology.

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"Under Artemis, NASA will carry out a series of groundbreaking missions on and around the Moon to prepare for the next giant leap for humanity: a crewed mission to Mars," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. "Competition is critical to our success on the lunar surface and beyond, ensuring we have the capability to carry out a cadence of missions over the next decade. Thank you to the Biden administration and Congress for their support of this new astronaut lander opportunity, which will ultimately strengthen and increase flexibility for Artemis."

NASA said it would issue a draft solicitation in the coming weeks for a second entrant to market for the development of a lunar lander.

The contract award, known as the Sustaining Lunar Development contract, is "meant to maximize NASA’s support for competition" as well as to provide "redundancy in services" in order to ensure NASA’s ability to transport astronauts to the lunar surface.

Following the publication of the draft solicitation, NASA will host a virtual industry day. The agency plans to issue the formal request for proposals by this summer. 

In April 2021, NASA had previously picked SpaceX as its partner to land the next American astronauts on the lunar surface. The mission is targeted for no sooner than April 2025 and NASA is now asking the Elon Musk-owned company to "transform" its proposed human landing system "into a spacecraft that meets the agency’s requirements for recurring services for a second demonstration mission," maximizing the partnership.

That timeline, however, is considered unlikely, according to NASA's Inspector General. 

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While NASA originally planned to pick two companies – choosing from SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics – Congress did not allocate enough funding to support the development of multiple vehicles, according to Space.com. 

The selection of SpaceX sparked protests from Dynetics and Blue Origin, as well as a lawsuit from the latter.

While the lawsuit would ultimately fail, development work was stalled for several months. 

In October, the Senate Appropriations Committee introduced a bill that would instruct NASA to pick a second company to develop a lander. Space.com reported that NASA has "assurances that the necessary money will come" and that Nelson said the competition will "get started in the fiscal year [2023] budget."

NASA said that the Sustaining Lunar Development contract and the second option under SpaceX's original landing award will "pave the way to future recurring lunar transportation services for astronauts at the moon."

The newly announced competition will be open to all American companies but SpaceX and NASA officials said during a Wednesday news conference that the company will have the opportunity to negotiate the terms of its existing contract to perform additional lunar development.

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"This strategy expedites progress toward a long-term, sustaining lander capability as early as the 2026 or 2027 timeframe," Lisa Watson-Morgan, program manager for the Human Landing System Program, said. "We expect to have two companies safely carry astronauts in their landers to the surface of the Moon under NASA’s guidance before we ask for services, which could result in multiple experienced providers in the market." 

NASA intends to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon as part of the Artemis missions. The crewed Artemis III will return astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, depending on the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion crew capsule – both of which will fly the uncrewed Artemis I mission.