Maxar Technologies has been selected to support Dynetics, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leidos, in designing and building a Human Landing System (HLS) for NASA’s Artemis program, the company announced on Friday.
“Maxar is tremendously proud to contribute to these critical pieces of NASA’s Artemis program,” said Megan Fitzgerald, Maxar’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Space Infrastructure. “By partnering with U.S. industry and leveraging innovative, flight-proven commercial technologies, NASA is accelerating this new era of American leadership in space.”
Maxar will deliver a variety of support services and hardware solutions that will enable power, control, communications, robotic manipulation and thermal optimization for the HLS. Maxar will also provide engineering and mission operations support. Dynetics’ HLS will deliver two astronauts from lunar orbit to the lunar surface and back, including surface habitation for approximately one week.
With Maxar’s work on the HLS, Dynetics will expand its contributions to NASA’s Artemis program. Maxar will develop the Power and Propulsion Element for the lunar Gateway to enable a sustainable human deep-space presence in collaboration with international partners.
Maxar will also contribute a robotic arm called SAMPLR for Masten Space Systems’ XL-1 unmanned lunar lander that will deliver nine technology demonstration experiments to the lunar south pole in 2022.
"Dynetics is excited to lead this expert team of subcontractors that will return Americans to the lunar surface," said Kim Doering, Vice President of Space Systems at Dynetics. "This team has a proven history of technical excellence, and their contributions will greatly benefit the future of space exploration."
The Artemis mission company selection in May 2020. Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX have won 10-month contracts worth $967 million combined to design and build human landing systems for NASA’s Artemis moon mission in 2024.
NASA said that all three contractors will further develop HLS concepts through February 2021as part of the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships initiative before the agency NASA selects which developers will move into the maturation
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Maxar is a trusted partner and innovator in Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructure. We deliver disruptive value to government and commercial customers to help them monitor, understand and navigate our changing planet; deliver global broadband communications; and explore and advance the use of space.
Our unique approach combines decades of deep mission understanding and a proven commercial and defense foundation to deploy solutions and deliver insights with unrivaled speed, scale and cost effectiveness. Maxar’s 4,000 team members in 30 global locations are inspired to harness the potential of space to help our customers create a better world.
