NASA Administrator Message: A Great Week for Lunar Work and a Salute to Opportunity

This is an exciting time to be leading America’s space program! Humans are preparing to leave Earth’s orbit for the first time since 1972 – going to the Moon and eventually to Mars and beyond. This week, we’ve reached milestones that bookend our capabilities – one that marks our next leap forward, and another that demonstrates what we’re capable of achieving when we push the boundaries of exploration.

First, I’m proud to share a bold response to the President’s call to usher in the next chapter of human exploration. We’re asking American companies to help us design and develop a new human lunar lander system, so we invited private industry and other potential partners to meet with us today at NASA Headquarters to discuss our new proposed architecture. We have outlined an approach that will help us land astronauts on the surface of the Moon in the next decade.

We have already committed to working with nine American companies to send new science instruments and technology demonstrations to the Moon’s surface on commercial cargo moon deliveries, and we plan to award our first delivery task order early this year.  We will announce the first instrument and technology awards for the first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions within the next few weeks.  

We’re going to the Moon to stay, and from there we’ll take the next giant leap in deep space exploration. 

In addition to this milestone in our lunar work, this week it was my privilege to join the staff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as we said goodbye to the Mars Rover Opportunity, which has remained quiet after a storm last June. For 15 years, Opportunity has engaged billions of people worldwide in Martian science. Not bad for a mission originally slated for 90 days on the surface! Holding the off-planet driving distance record, and lasting 60 times longer than its design predictions, Opportunity and its twin Spirit gave us a great run of science on the Red Planet and helped engage many future engineers and explorers who want to go to Mars themselves. 

Because of trailblazers such as Opportunity, there will come a day when our brave astronauts walk on the surface of Mars. And when that day arrives, some portion of that first footprint will be owned by the men and women of our Mars Exploration Rovers mission, and the robotic explorers that defied the odds and did so much on the surface of Mars.  

The lunar surface work we discussed today and the progress we’re making on the Space Launch System (SLS), Orion and the Gateway, are going to bring the next generation to the Moon and Mars. This has been a great week for NASA, and I thank you all for your continued dedication to our agency’s vital mission.

Ad astra,

Jim Bridenstine