By the time NASA’s second group of astronauts reaches the Moon later this decade, the space agency will want to have a lunar rover waiting for them. But as the space agency approaches a crucial selection, some government officials are seeking a kind of insurance policy to increase the program’s chances of success.
At issue is the agency’s “Lunar Terrain Vehicle” (LTV) contract. In April 2024, the space agency awarded a few tens of millions of dollars to three companies—Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Astrolabe—to complete preliminary design work on vehicle concepts. NASA then planned to underwrite a company to build one or more rovers, land on the Moon, and provide rover services for a decade starting in 2029. Over the lifetime of the fixed price service contract, the combined maximum potential value was $4.6 billion.
The companies have since completed their design work, including building prototypes, and submitted their final bids for the much larger service contract in August. NASA has been considering those bids since then and is set to announce a final selection before the end of this month, according to two sources.
NASA can only afford one
The problem is that NASA can only fund one company’s proposal, leaving the two other rovers on the cutting room floor.
It’s bad for competition, and it makes NASA vulnerable. Recently, Collins, one of NASA’s two new spacesuit providers, exited the program. This left only Axiom Space as the provider of suits for the lunar surface. And in 2014, with the Commercial Crew program, NASA gave almost all of its available funds to Boeing. (SpaceX was added only during the final weeks before the decision was announced.) After more than a decade, Boeing has yet to deliver a finished crewed spacecraft.
“We have seen over and over again with our business programs that two is better than one,” one executive told Ars.
In short, having only one company pursuing its own lunar rover means there is a single point of failure – if that company leaves for any reason, NASA astronauts will be left without wheels on the Moon.
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