NASA is offering to pay private industry to mine the moon for “materials”. In official terms, it is releasing a solicitation for commercial companies to provide proposals for the collection of space resources.

NASA to prime the pump for moon resource miningSpecifically, the contracted companies will “Collect from 50g up to 500g of Lunar regolith and/or rock materials (“Collected Material”) from the surface of the Moon (Luna)”.

NASA says its Artemis program – as well as landing people back on the Moon by 2024 – is focused on taking steps towards a “sustainable lunar exploration architecture”.

President Trump’s recent ‘Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources‘ clarifies, says NASA, that it is the policy of the United States to encourage international support for the public and private recovery and use of resources in outer space.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (right) elaborates:

“Today, we’re taking a critical step forward by releasing a solicitation for commercial companies to provide proposals for the collection of space resources. When considering such proposals, we will require that all actions be taken in a transparent fashion, in full compliance with the Registration Convention, Article II and other provisions of the Outer Space Treaty, and all of our other international obligations. We are putting our policies into practice to fuel a new era of exploration and discovery that will benefit all of humanity.

The requirements we’ve outlined are that a company will collect a small amount of Moon “dirt” or rocks from any location on the lunar surface, provide imagery to NASA of the collection and the collected material, along with data that identifies the collection location, and conduct an “in-place” transfer of ownership of the lunar regolith or rocks to NASA. After ownership transfer, the collected material becomes the sole property of NASA for our use.”

NASA’s goal, it states, is that the retrieval and transfer of ownership will be completed before 2024. The “open competition” is not limited to U.S. companies, it says,

“NASA’s payment is exclusively for the lunar regolith, with any awardee receiving 10 percent at award, 10 percent upon launch, and the remaining 80 percent upon successful completion. The agency will determine retrieval methods for the transferred lunar regolith at a later date.”

The ability to conduct “in-situ resources utilization” (ISRU) will be incredibly important on Mars, it notes, which is why it is highlighting the importance of developing techniques and gaining experience on the surface of the Moon.

NASA promises it will “publicly release our data” to ensure the whole world benefits. You can read more on NASA’s approach here.

Recently, in this area, Masten Space Systems announced that for its Masten Mission One (MM1) – due to launch in 2022 via SpaceX – the lander is aiming to touch down on the resource-rich lunar south pole.