NASA awarded Firefly a nearly $112 million contract in space to develop a lander to land on the far side of the moon

March 15-NASA said on Tuesday local time that it had signed a nearly $112 million contract with US rocket maker Firefly Space (Firefly Aerospace) to launch a lander to the far side of the moon in 2026.

"the commercial lander will carry two payloads, as well as communications and data relay satellites in lunar orbit, which is also a project of the European Space Agency (ESA) in cooperation with NASA," NASA said.

The contract to develop the commercial lander is part of the commercial lunar payload service (CLPS) program of the Artemis lunar landing program. The goal of the CLPS project is to deploy lunar landers built by private companies to study the lunar surface before humans land on the moon in the next few years.

NASA last year awarded a similar contract worth $73 million to spacecraft software company Draper to deliver science and technology payloads to the far side of the moon by 2025.

In October last year, Firefly Space successfully put three satellites into low-Earth orbit for the first time. NASA awarded Firefly Space a $93.3 million contract in 2021 to conduct 10 scientific investigations and technical demonstrations about the moon in 2023.