NASA wants a piece of Moon; asks contractors to retrieve Lunar Regolith above 50gm

America's ncy NASA is seemingly er to have a piece of Moon to itself. It has issued an unprecedented solicitation titled “Purchase of Lunar Regolith and/or Rock Materials from Contractor”. 

ncy has asked contractors to bid on an effort to retrieve between 50g and 500g of lunar regolith or moon dust and bring it back to Earth before 2024.

contractor needs to collect said amount of moon particles from lunar surface without any help from NASA in development, production, or launch of vehicles required to travel to Moon to get moon particles. 

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'regolith types, rocks, ices'

amount of material retrieved does t affect overall price of contract. However, NASA has clarified that contract will be awarded on basis of being “low price, technically acceptable”, which means procurement by NASA is a "free and open competition" for contractors and anybody is free to retrieve lunar regolith, all NASA would do is buy it from m. Contractor shall describe how retrieval of lunar material would be performed in ir proposal response to NASA.

contractor shall provide imry to NASA of collection and Collected Material, and data that identifies collection location on Lunar surface and after ownership of collected Lunar material is transferred to NASA, ncy is free to do anything with it, Request for Quotation (RFQ) by NASA said.

collected materials may be any combination of regolith types, rocks, or co-present species such as ices. NASA reserves right to independently confirm Contractor’s claim of collecting Collected Materials. If NASA does choose to do so, n NASA will determine and use such independent verification methods that will t interfere with Contractor’s activities, NASA's RFQ mentioned.  payment terms are set at a ratio of 10:10:80 ratio. 

An ombudsman has been appointed to hear and facilitate resolution of concerns from offerors, potential offerors, and contractors during pre-award and post-award phases of this acquisition. When requested, ombudsman will maintain strict confidentiality as to source of concern, NASA's RFQ read.

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