WASHINGTON — NASA plans to award three more lunar missions this year through a commercial services program, including an orbiter that would replace the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
In earnings calls this week, executives with Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines, the two companies that have landed spacecraft on the moon through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program, said they expect NASA to award three more task orders through that program by the end of the year.
Two of the upcoming CLPS task orders will be lander missions, which have accounted for nearly all the missions under the program since the agency issued the first task orders in 2019. The companies did not discuss specifics of those missions.
The third, though, would be an “orbiter imaging service,” said Jason Kim, chief executive of Firefly Aerospace, during his company’s Aug. 12 earnings call. Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, mentioned in an Aug. 14 earnings call a task order expected later this summer or in early fall for “the orbiter surveyor to map the moon in replacement of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.”
NASA developed LRO two decades ago during an earlier effort to return humans to the moon, the Vision for Space Exploration. Launched in 2009, LRO features a high-resolution camera and other instruments for studying the moon. The spacecraft continues to function well and operates under an extended mission running through 2028.
