NASA’s Human Landing System: Enabling the Next Generation of Lunar Science

The Human Landing System (HLS)
is the mode of transportation that will take astronauts to
the lunar surface as part of NASA's Artemis exploration
program. HLS also serves as a research platform both
on the surface and in lunar orbit, enabling critical
scientific investigations on and of the Moon. With
support at NASA centers around the country, the HLS
program, based at Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Alabama, is working closely with its
commercial partners throughout the development
process to design and build innovative and technically
advanced lunar landers – new vehicles designed for the
modern era of space travel – leveraging decades of
human spaceflight experience and the speed of the
commercial sector.
In 2019, NASA asked U.S. industry for proposals to
design and develop a human lander for the first human
mission to the lunar surface under Artemis. Initial
contracts were awarded to Blue Origin Federation,
Dynetics, and SpaceX to advance their designs.
Following the execution of the ten-month Base Period,
NASA announced in April 2021 that the agency
selected SpaceX to move forward with its human
landing system [1] and land the first two astronauts on
the lunar surface during the Artemis III mission.
Following two protest periods, NASA awarded the
contract, known as Option A, to SpaceX in July 2021
and resumed work in November 2021 (Fig. 1).
In parallel, the HLS program has been preparing for
the acquisition that will procure regular crewed
transportation to the lunar surface following Artemis III.
NASA released a request for information (RFI) in July
2021 asking U.S. industry for feedback to help inform
the future solicitation, known as Lunar Exploration
Transportation Services (LETS) [2]. Also in July 2021,
NASA released the NextSTEP-2 Appendix N broad
agency announcement soliciting new work from U.S.
industry to mature their HLS designs and perform risk
reduction activities in advance of the LETS
procurement [3]. NASA selected Blue Origin
Federation, Dynetics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop
Grumman, and SpaceX to participate [4]. This work will
also help better inform the LETS procurement and
prepare industry to propose. NASA hopes to release a
draft request for proposals (RFP) in Spring 2022.