NASA said on Friday it has awarded billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's private space company SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build a spacecraft to fly astronauts to the moon, picking it over Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and defence contractor Dynetics Inc. The bid by Musk beat one from Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who had partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. Musk has outlined an ambitious agenda for SpaceX and its reusable rockets, including landing humans on Mars. In December, NASA designated 18 astronauts for possible participation in planned NASA missions to return to the moon's surface, with a target date of 2024. An uncrewed SpaceX Starship prototype rocket failed to land safely on March 30 after a test launch from Boca Chica, Texas.

Source: CBC News April 16, 2021 20:03 UTC