Blue Origin and SpaceX Join NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services Initiative
NASA recently announced that five new companies, including SpaceX and Blue Origin, are able to bid to provide payload delivery to the lunar surface via the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The CLPS initiative is encouraging aerospace providers to develop innovative solutions to quickly deliver future payloads to the lunar surface. Although there are now 14 providers vying for only five current opportunities, the high competition will ensure the winning bidders can provide a technically robust solution at an affordable price and acceptable time-frame. Additional opportunities are planned but not guaranteed.
The most interesting aspect of the new firms joining are the vastly increased capabilities they offer. Instead of a few kilograms delivered, the new firms offer multiple tons delivered. Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander will deliver between 3.6 and 6.5 metric tons, while SpaceX will use Starship to deliver up to 100 metric tons. Starship can easily deliver supplies, infrastructure, and actual people for humanity’s first long term base on the Moon. Blue Moon offers a very versatile platform for initial ISRU demonstration missions, including being used as a platform for beaming power to rovers exploring permanently shadowed regions.
At the end of the day, worthwhile space resource demonstration missions require kilowatts of power, which can only be delivered by large payload landers. The new CLPS providers offer this capability. Having joined the CLPS initiative, it is now acceptable to develop space resource missions around these landers.
Read more about the new CLPS providers here.
