U.S. lunar lander project to SpaceX… #1 Rich Bezos Wins Musk

Input 2021.04.17 14:06

Musk won the space race between Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s first and second richest man, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced on the 16th (local time) that it has selected SpaceX, a space exploration company founded by Musk, as a lunar probe developer for the’Artemis Project’. Three companies, including Blue Origin and Dinetics, founded by SpaceX and Bezos, bid for this business competition.

NASA is working on the Artemis project to send mankind back to the moon with the goal of 2024. The last lunar landing of the Apollo 17 took place in 1972.

SpaceX spent $2.89 billion (about 322 trillion won) in business expenses. NASA positively evaluated that SpaceX met key performance criteria, etc., in close consultation with NASA experts in the process of designing the human landing system (HLS) of the lander.

First of all, NASA plans to launch an unmanned probe first with the newly developed Space Launch System (SLS) as early as the end of this year or early 2022.

Afterwards, the Orion spacecraft carrying four astronauts was launched into orbit on the moon. Then, two of the astronauts transfer to SpaceX’s’Starship’ lunar lander and descend to the lunar surface. Upon reaching the moon, the two astronauts explored the surface for a week, then boarded the lander and returned to the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit.

Meanwhile, the New York Times (NYT) said that NASA’s increased dependence on private companies in space exploration projects has once again been revealed. US President Joe Biden’s administration has also pledged to include the first female astronauts and astronauts of color in the exploration project this month.