NASA wants these private companies to help it get to the moon

NASA has big plans to go back to the moon, and it wants private companies to help them get there.

On Thursday, NASA announced partnerships with nine companies that could fly small payloads to the lunar surface through contracts with the American space agency sometime in the relatively near future. 

The nine companies are: 

• Astrobotic Technology

• Deep Space Systems

• Draper

• Firefly Aerospace

• Intuitive Machines

• Lockheed Martin Space

• Masten Space Systems

• Moon Express

• Orbit Beyonds

NASA plans to award about $2.6 billion over the course of 10 years that these nine companies can compete for.

“The innovation of America’s aerospace companies, wedded with our big goals in science and human exploration, are going to help us achieve amazing things on the Moon and feed forward to Mars,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. Read more…

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