{"id":1962,"date":"2025-03-17T21:41:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T21:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/17\/nasa-contractors-firefly-and-intuitive-machines-are-competimates\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T21:41:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T21:41:34","slug":"nasa-contractors-firefly-and-intuitive-machines-are-competimates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/17\/nasa-contractors-firefly-and-intuitive-machines-are-competimates\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Contractors Firefly and Intuitive Machines are \u2018Competimates\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Firefly\u2019s Blue Ghost lunar lander. Courtesy Firefly Aerospace<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Firefly Aerospace<\/a> and Intuitive Machines<\/a> belong to a group of more than a dozen private companies vying to land lucrative NASA contracts sending small spacecraft to the Moon. But according to Trina Patterson<\/a>, Firefly\u2019s vice president of marketing and communications, the two have managed to remain friendly within the competitive space ecosystem.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re very, very much \u2018competimates,’\u201d said Patterson while speaking at a SXSW panel on March 11 alongside Josh Marshall<\/a>, communications director at Intuitive Machines, and Nilufar Ramji<\/a>, a public affairs officer for NASA. \u201cThe lunar economy can\u2019t be done by a monopoly. It really takes a village,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Both Firefly and Intuitive Machines are vendors for NASA\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, an initiative established by the space agency six years ago to launch a lunar economy propelled by a mix of startups and established companies bidding on NASA\u2019s Moon contracts. The model offers NASA a more hands-off and low-cost approach to lunar missions, with the agency sending science and technology experiments aboard CLPS vendor-designed spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The program hopes to jump-start lunar commerce by creating a lunar delivery service similar to how FedEx or DHL operate on Earth. In this case, NASA\u2019s role is equivalent to that of a customer shipping a package, with the likes of Firefly and Intuitive Machines acting as delivery services that take said package \u201cwherever it needs to be,\u201d said Ramji.<\/p>\n

CLPS was always intended to be a high-risk program. \u201cWe know going in there that these companies have never landed on the Moon,\u201d said Ramji. Three out of the four missions completed under CLPS so far have failed. The only successful mission was by Firefly earlier this month when its Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down<\/a> near a lunar volcanic feature known as the Mons Latreille. NASA paid Firefly more than $100 million to deliver a litany of experiments to the region. The lander, launched into orbit from Florida\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in January, today (March 17) completed more than two weeks\u2019 worth of surface operations for the agency.<\/p>\n

Intuitive Machine received support from Firefly after failure<\/h3>\n

Shortly after Firefly\u2019s successful landing, another lunar lander from Intuitive Machines also attempted to make contact with the Moon<\/a>. But the spacecraft tipped over while landing and ran out of battery, cutting a planned ten-day mission short. Intuitive Machines, which received $62.5 million from NASA to carry payloads to the lunar surface, previously faced a similar fate in 2024 when its initial CLPS mission saw the company\u2019s lander topple over shortly after touching down on the Moon.<\/p>\n

The company says it received support from rivals like Firefly after its first failure. At the time, \u201cI was still 50-50 on whether we\u2019re supposed to hate you guys or love you,\u201d said Intuitive Machine\u2019s Marshall. But after receiving a kind card from its competitor, Marshall claims they landed on the latter option.<\/p>\n

Nearly every space company can relate to the pain of a mission gone awry. Firefly, which also develops rockets, experienced a mid-air explosion of its Alpha rocket during a 2021 launch that resulted in pieces of the vehicle falling back down to the ground \u201clike feathers,\u201d according to Patterson. One of these pieces was later mailed to Astrobotic<\/a>, another CLPS contractor, after a mission last year failed to reach the Moon due to a valve leak. Firefly\u2019s message included a note reading, \u201cWe understand where you\u2019ve been. Keep going forward,\u201d according to Patterson.<\/p>\n

He added that Firefly holds watch parties to celebrate launches from its rivals like Intuitive Machines. \u201cGoing to space is hard. Landing on the Moon is harder,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely difficult, and you have to support each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s CLPS vendors include 14 companies:<\/p>\n