With a $ 2.9 million contract, SpaceX has left behind companies like Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which has partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Darper. Another competitor to SpaceX was Dynestics, a large defense contractor.
NASA initially selected all three companies for the initial phase of the contract, and two of them were expected to build a lunar lander.
For other major programs, NASA selected multiple vendors to stimulate competition and provide a reserve in case one of them failed to complete the task.
The Artemis program, which plans to land astronauts on the moon, was launched under the administration of former US President Donald Trump and supported by the Joe Biden administration. This year, the US Congress allocated $ 850 million to the Artemis program, far less than the 3.3 billion needed to meet the 2024 deadline. But it is not planned to abandon the program.
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