NASA chooses space company Elon Musk for lunar mission | Financial

The American space agency announced this on Friday. The order is worth $ 2.9 billion.

NASA awards the contract exclusively to SpaceX. The company, founded in 2002, beats Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin company. The Amazon founder wanted to win the contract together with aerospace and defense companies Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper.

Musk, who is also CEO of car manufacturer Tesla, co-founded SpaceX with the ultimate goal of getting people to fly to the planet Mars.

SpaceX

In recent years, the company has caused quite a stir by launching test missions for rockets and spacecraft at full speed. This had the additional effect that enthusiasm for space travel increased again.

NASA last sent astronauts to the moon in 1972. That year, the American Apollo space travel program ended. For the 2007 sequel to that program, called Artemis, NASA is pinning hope in SpaceX’s Starship.

This rocket is reusable after launch and can take large groups of people to the moon, Mars and eventually other planets, according to SpaceX.

Fireball

Until now, unmanned test flights with the Starship have not been successful. On landing attempts, the spacecraft ended up in a large fireball. Recently, the US Aviation Authority FAA announced an investigation into safety in some failed tests.

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