NASA has pushed back the decision on who will build the lunar rover for its ambitious Artemis program by four months, causing anxiety among the industry players vying for the lucrative contract.
The space agency was supposed to announce the winner of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) services contract in November after issuing a final request for proposals on May 26. The deadline for submitting the proposals was July 26, after being extended from July 13.
Budget issues for the LTV project
However, NASA recently updated its procurement website and changed the expected contract award date to March 31, 2024, without explaining the four-month delay.
As per SpaceNews.com, a NASA spokesperson said on October 30 that the agency needed "additional time to evaluate proposals" but did not provide further details.
Industry sources, who spoke anonymously due to the ongoing procurement, said that the delay could be related to the uncertainty over NASA's budget for the fiscal year 2024. They said that waiting until the end of March could give NASA a clearer picture of how much money it can allocate for the LTV project next year and whether it can afford to fund more than one contract.
The LTV contract has attracted several contenders, including startups such as Astrolab and Intuitive Machines, as well as established firms such as Leidos, Lockheed Martin, and Teledyne Brown. Some have formed unusual alliances, such as Lockheed collaborating with carmaker General Motors and Leidos with NASCAR, the auto racing company. NASA plans to use the rovers for the Artemis 5 mission, scheduled for the decade's end.
Using the rover as a service against proprietary ownership
NASA intends to buy the LTV lunar rover as a service, meaning that the companies will own the rovers and can use them for other purposes when they are not needed for Artemis missions. This is similar to how NASA has procured some other elements of Artemis, such as the human landing system and the lunar gateway. For those contracts, NASA has chosen at least two providers, but for LTV, NASA has only said that it will select one or more providers.
NASA and some companies have argued that the services approach benefits both parties, as it saves NASA money and gives the companies more flexibility and opportunities to find non-NASA customers. However, only some agree with this view.
During the von Braun Space Exploration Symposium held by the American Astronautical Society on October 27, Mike Griffin, former NASA Administrator, expressed his disappointment with the sudden shift from focusing on government-led space exploration to questioning the value of non-commercial space initiatives.
Griffin did not specifically name LTV or any other program that has adopted the services approach. Still, he claimed that the shift to commercial strategies has deprived the government agencies of doing "a certain amount of work themselves" and gaining valuable experience to apply to other programs.
He also accused the companies that support the commercial approaches of wanting to get government money without following the rules and regulations that come with traditional government contracting methods. "Until we can return to the proper definition of commercial we're going to be kidding ourselves."
Originally published on Interesting Engineering : Original article