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https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...contracts.html

Houston Spaceport companies land NASA contracts for upcoming Artemis mission

Ahead of NASA’s return to the moon, two space companies with a Houston presence landed contracts from the space agency.

Houston-based Axiom Space secured an initial $5 million commitment that could grow to $142 million over four years to modify its Artemis III lunar spacesuit design for spacewalking from the International Space Station.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Collins Aerospace, a division of Virginia-based Raytheon Technologies Corp. (NYSE: RTX), landed a $5 million contract to modify its own spacesuit design for operating on the moon.

Both contracts are coming out of NASA’s Extravehicular Activity Services, or xEVAS, contract, which has a combined $3.5 billion on offer for spacewalking needs through 2034, according to the agency’s website.

For Axiom, the task order follows its $228.5 million contract to produce the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or AxEMU, suit for the Artemis III mission. Axiom revealed the design, which can be used on the lunar surface, in March 2023.

Both Collins and Axiom were previously selected for other xEVAS task awards, and the terms of the contract allow both companies to own the technology they develop and use it for non-NASA applications, according to an agency press release from 2022.

The Artemis III mission is planned for 2025, according to NASA’s website, and will be the first manned mission to the moon in over 50 years. The mission will explore the region near the moon’s south pole, using an Orion spacecraft to bring the crew to the moon.