NASA to Award Three More Lunar Missions Through CLPS Program

### Upcoming CLPS Task Orders NASA plans to award three more lunar missions this year through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The missions will include two lander missions and one lunar orbiter mission. The companies involved in the CLPS program, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines, expect NASA to award the task orders by the end of the year. ### Lunar Orbiter Mission The third task order will be for a lunar orbiter imaging service. This mission will replace the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched in 2009. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been operating under an extended mission running through 2028, but it is aging and scientists have been pushing for a replacement. A 2022 report by the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group noted that plans for a next-generation long-lived integrated orbiter with modern instruments are long overdue. ### CLPS Program Background The CLPS program is a commercial services program that allows companies to develop and launch lunar missions on behalf of NASA. The program has been used to launch several lander missions to the moon, and the upcoming task orders will continue this trend. Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines are two of the companies that have landed spacecraft on the moon through the CLPS program. ### Company Preparations Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines are both well-positioned to pursue a lunar orbiter imaging mission. Firefly announced its intent to develop a commercial lunar imaging service, called Ocula, using cameras mounted on the company's Elytra spacecraft. Intuitive Machines has a NASA contract to manage the operations of the high-resolution camera on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as another NASA-developed camera, ShadowCam, on South Korea's Danuri lunar orbiter. Both companies have backlogs of four CLPS lander missions each, and they are expanding their production facilities to meet the demand. Firefly Aerospace has more than quadrupled its cleanroom space for lander and spacecraft production, while Intuitive Machines has added 75,000 square feet of production space at its Houston headquarters. ### CLPS 2.0 The CLPS program is expected to shift to a new contract, CLPS 2.0, next year. The new contract will have a maximum value of $10 billion over 10 years, with an option for a five-year extension that would increase the maximum value by $5 billion. Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines are both bidding on the contract, and they are preparing to offer larger landers as part of CLPS 2.0. The companies are looking at even larger landers to support NASA's anticipated needs for its lunar base. ### Conclusion The upcoming CLPS task orders will continue the trend of using commercial services to develop and launch lunar missions. The lunar orbiter mission will replace the aging Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and will provide valuable data for scientists. The CLPS program is expected to shift to a new contract next year, and the companies involved are preparing to offer larger landers to support NASA's lunar base plans.