“It’s yet one more step, in an thrilling group of steps, that may get us to a sustainable human touchdown system to the moon,” Kathy Lueders, the chief of NASA’s human spaceflight program, mentioned within the company’s announcement.

SpaceX’s contract is value $2.9 billion. The Washington Submit first reported SpaceX’s win on Friday.

NASA final yr awarded the three groups with $967 million and 10-month contracts to start work on the lunar lander ideas underneath its Human Touchdown Methods, or HLS, program. SpaceX was awarded the least quantity of these three, with $135 million. In the meantime, Dynetics acquired $253 million and Blue Origin had gained $579 million.

NASA was anticipated to decide on two of the three groups, making the only number of SpaceX a shock given the company’s prior targets for this system to proceed to be a contest.

For the HLS program, Musk’s firm bid a variation of its Starship rocket, prototypes of which SpaceX has been testing at its growth facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The corporate has carried out a number of profitable check flights of Starship to this point, though touchdown makes an attempt after the final 4 high-altitude flights resulted in quite a lot of fiery explosions.

HLS is part of NASA’s Artemis mission to land astronauts on the moon by 2024.

The mission was introduced by President Donald Trump’s administration. President Joe Biden’s press secretary has indicated the present administration expects to proceed with Artemis.

Bezos’ area firm unveiled its plans to construct a crewed lunar lander in 2019, saying it could companion with business giants Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper within the effort. Leidos-owned Dynetics teamed up with Sierra Nevada Company for its idea and was seen as a darkish horse within the race.