#NASA has selected Intuitive Machines to deliver the #polar Resources #IceMining Experiment (PRIME-1) #drill, combined with a mass spectrometer, to the #Moon by December 2022.

The ice drilling #mission is the Houston-based company’s second Moon contract award under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

#space #spaceexploration #spaceindustry #newspace #spaceeconomy #spacetechnology #spacesector #Spacemining

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NASA has tapped the Houston-based company Intuitive Machines to land an ice-mining drill on the south pole of the moon in 2022.

Under the deal, NASA will pay Intuitive Machines $47 million to deliver the space agency’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment (PRIME-1) to the moon’s south pole. It is the first-ever mission designed to harvest water ice from inside the moon, NASA officials said. Moon ice is a resource NASA hopes to exploit under its Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon in 2024.