NASA said this weekend that SpaceX, Blue Origin and six other aerospace companies can now compete for up to $10 billion in contracts to deliver cargo and infrastructure to the Moon, part of a broader push to build a permanent base at the lunar south pole.
\n\nThe New York Post reports that NASA made the announcement at the MAX POWER aerospace expo and air show at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX, Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, iSpace US, Lockheed Martin Space, Northrop Grumman Space Systems and Voyager Technologies are now all eligible to bid on future lunar delivery missions under a new version of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) framework. That framework carries a combined ceiling of $10 billion over 10 years, a cap on future task orders rather than money already committed. NASA also raised the limit on its existing CLPS contract, from $2.6 billion to $4.2 billion, to fund the early phase of the Moon base effort.
\n\nSeparately, Blue Origin won a $94 million contract to carry NASA’s nuclear powered PROMISE rover, short for Polar Rover for Observation, Mapping, and In-Situ Exploration, to the lunar South Pole. A performance based option could add another $140…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/
