Artistic vision of the landing system of the crew members on the surface of the moon
NASA representatives are officially in search of ideas from private companies to develop future lunar technologies. Projects are expected by the end of next month. In addition, the agency has published its own methodology for returning lunar missions.
The 2019th year was interesting for lunar explorations. The Chang'e-4 Chinese mission completed the world's first soft landing on the dark side of the moon in early January. On January 21, millions of people in North and South America could enjoy a beautiful lunar eclipse (bloody super-moon).
This year, NASA is also planning an important holiday, namely the 50th anniversary of the iconic Apollo 11 mission that brought Neal Armstrong, Base Aldrin and Michael Collins to the Earth satellite. On February 7, the agency announced that it intends to cooperate with American companies to create reusable systems, with the help of which by 2028 it will be possible to return people to the moon. Partnerships will be multi-phase and may include working with other countries to move missions to more distant destinations, like Mars. The basis should serve already operating in orbit technology.
Now the most important thing is to create a gateway capable of supporting lunar travel in both directions. Thus, it would be possible to lay the first building blocks for reusable spacecraft and cargo ships transporting fuel.
But this is only the beginning. In the future, it is planned to extract fuel directly on the moon. Part of the project focuses on the production of rocket fuel from water ice and lunar dust. Replies from private companies must be received by March 25th.
