NASA picks SpaceX to build lander for next mission to the moon

NASA picks SpaceX to build lander for next mission to the moon

NASA announced on Friday that SpaceX would build the next lander to carry astronauts to the moon in a first since the Apollo programme. The astronauts will include both the first woman and first person of colour, NASA said of its Artemis programme to explore the moon. The awarded contract is worth $2.89 billion (€2.4 billion). Elon Musk's SpaceX lander beat landers developed by Blue Origin, founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Dynetics, a Huntsville, Alabama, subsidiary of Leidos. NASA will send four astronauts aboard their Orion spacecraft to enter into the moon's orbit, then two astronauts will use the SpaceX lander to travel to the moon's surface. The astronauts will explore the moon's surface for a week before travelling back to the spacecraft and travelling back to Earth. NASA declined to give a specific date for the launch indicating that it would be sometime this decade. It's the first moon landing since 1972. “We'll do it when it's safe," said Kathy Lueders, who leads NASA's human space exploration office.Astronauts travelling to International Space StationFour astronauts meanwhile arrived at Kennedy Space Centre for SpaceX's third crew launch in less than a year. Their flight