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NASA selects nine US companies to vie for moon programme funding

NASA selects nine US companies to vie for moon programme funding

As soon as 2022, NASA expects to begin construction on a new space station laboratory that will orbit the moon and act as a pit stop for missions to deeper parts of our solar system, such as Mars.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine poses for a photographer after an interview with Reuters at NASA headquarters in Washington, U.S., August 21, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine poses for a photographer after an interview with Reuters at NASA headquarters in Washington, U.S., August 21, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

NASA has named nine US companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp, that will compete for funding under the space agency's renewed long-term moon programme, a private-public undertaking to develop technology that will explore the lunar surface.

The companies, some which will develop small launch vehicles and robotic rovers over the next 10 years, will vie for a chunk of the US$2.6 billion under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme.

As soon as 2022, NASA expects to begin construction on a new space station laboratory that will orbit the moon and act as a pit stop for missions to deeper parts of our solar system, such as Mars.

"When we go to the moon, we want to be one customer of many customers in a robust marketplace between the earth and the moon," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said at a news briefing.

"Lunar payloads could fly on these contracted missions as early as 2019," NASA said in an earlier news release.

In addition to Lockheed Martin, NASA selected Draper, which developed computers for the Apollo missions, Astrobotic Technology Inc, Firefly Aerospace Inc, Moon Express and four others to potentially develop equipment for the programme.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette in Orlando, Florida; editing by Bill Berkrot)

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