NASA to pay Colorado-based start-up $1 for collecting moon rocks

NASA will be paying $1 to Colorado-based start-up Lunar Outpost for collecting moon’s rocks. This comes under the agency’s low-cost lunar resource collection program which was announced earlier this year. As a part of this program, NASA will be paying for their collection of moon soil between 50-500 grams. 

NASA acting associate administrator Mike Gold in a press conference said "The companies will collect the samples and then provide us with visual evidence and other data that they’ve been collected, and then ownership will transfer and we will then collect those samples". He added, "The objective [of these collection missions] is twofold: There is important policy and precedent that’s being set, both relative to the utilization of space resources, and the expansion of the public and private partnerships  beyond Earth orbit to the moon".

Read: NASA Announces Partnerships For Moon Exploration

NASA partners with various companies 

Lunar Outpost is one of the three companies that NASA selected as winners. The other two were Space Systems from California, which proposed a $15,000 mission in 2023 and Tokyo-based ispace, which proposed a pair of $5,000 missions in 2022 and 2023. The companies will be paid in three steps: 10 per cent of the funds at the time of the award, the other 10 per cent when the company launches their collection spacecraft. The remaining 80 per cent will be given when NASA verifies the material collected by the company. 

Read: NASA To Bring Rock Samples Back To Earth In Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign

During mid October, NASA announced its partnership with 14 American companies to develop a range of technologies that will help them to pave the way to sustainable Artemis operations on the Moon by the end of the decade. According to the reports by AP, NASA's Administrator Jim Bridenstine said, “We're going to enable the private sector, but we're also going to enable international partners for the biggest, broadest, most diverse, inclusive coalition of research and exploration on the surface of the Moon in the history of humankind”. He added, “But this exploration, it's not about the moon or Mars. It's not about human exploration or science. We're bringing it all together in a way that makes the program sustainable”.

Read: 'NASA Was A Disaster Before Us': Trump Takes Credit As SpaceX & Astronauts Liftoff For ISS

Also Read: NASA To Launch 'Sentinel-6' Satellite To Track Earth's Rising Sea Level, How To Watch Live

(Image Credits: Unsplash)