The Human Landing System (HLS) are spacecraft developed for the NASA-led Artemis program to land astronauts on the Moon. HLS vehicles are designed to transport crews from lunar orbit to the lunar surface, support them during surface operations, and return them to lunar orbit. Two HLS designs are currently in development: SpaceX's Starship HLS and Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mark 2. As of March 2026, NASA intends to launch one or both into Earth orbit in mid-2027 for rendezvous and docking tests as part of the Artemis III mission. Selection of the lander for the first crewed lunar landing of the program during the Artemis IV mission in early 2028 will depend on the results of those tests and equipment readiness. Rather than leading development internally, NASA provided a reference design and solicited proposals from commercial vendors to design, develop, and deliver systems meeting agency requirements. The competition began in 2019, and Starship HLS was selected in 2021. Following the award, the procurement was challenged in court, alleging improper evaluation of proposals. In 2023, NASA expanded the program by selecting a second competing lander, Blue Moon, stating that the move would increase competition and support additional lunar landing opportunities.
Reference design
The Advanced Exploration Lander was a 2018 NASA concept for a three-stage lander, intended to serve as a design reference for the commercial HLS design proposals. After departing from the Lunar Gateway in its lunar near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), a transfer module would take the lander and embarked crew to a low lunar orbit and then separate. The descent module would then land itself and the ascent module carrying the crew on the lunar surface. A crew of up to four could spend up to two weeks on the surface before using the ascent module to take them back to Gateway. Each of the three modules would have a mass of approximately 12 to 15 metric tons and would be delivered separately by commercial launchers for integration at Gateway. Both the ascent and transfer modules could be designed to be reusable, with the descent module intended to be left on the lunar surface. Lunar Gateway was cancelled in 2026.
Preliminary HLS studies
In December 2018 NASA announced that it was issuing a formal request for proposals as Appendix E of NextSTEP-2 inviting American companies to submit bids for the design and development of new reusable systems allowing astronauts to land on the lunar surface. On February 14, 2019, NASA hosted an Industry Forum at NASA HQ to provide an overview of the Human Landing System (HLS) Broad Agency Announcement. In April 2019 NASA announced a formal request for proposals closing on November 15, 2019, for Appendix H of NextSTEP-2 inviting American companies to submit bids for the design and development of the Ascent Element of the Human Landing System (HLS) including the cabin used during landings. This was extended to cover an option for an integrated lander—a single vehicle that performs transfer, descent, and ascent.
Design competition
Five companies responded to NASA's request for proposal by the November 2019 deadline, and after evaluating the proposals, NASA selected three for further design work. In April 2020, NASA awarded separate contracts totaling US$967 million in design development funding to Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX to begin a 10-month-long design processes. The companies/teams selected in the 2020 design awards were the "National Team" led by Blue Origin, with US$579 million in NASA design funding; Dynetics, including SNC and other unspecified companies, with US$253 million in NASA funding; and SpaceX with a modified Starship spacecraft design called Starship HLS, with US$135 million in NASA design funding. Although the HLS initial design phase was planned to be a ten-month program ending in February 2021 with the selection of up to two contractors, NASA delayed the selection process and announcement by two months. The companies were bidding on a contract to provide design, development, build, test, and evaluation of an HLS, plus two lunar landings, one uncrewed and one crewed, for a fixed price. NASA evaluated the bids based on three evaluation factors: technical merit, managerial ability, and price, in that order, and found SpaceX better.
On April 16, 2021, NASA selected only a single lander—Starship HLS—to move on to a full development contract. NASA awarded a US$2.89 billion contract to SpaceX to develop the Starship HLS lander and to provide two operational lunar missions—one uncrewed demonstration mission, and one crewed lunar landing—as early as 2025. NASA had stated that they would have preferred to award two contracts, but that insufficient funds were appropriated by Congress to allow the awarding of a second contract. This had been stated as a possible outcome in the contract solicitation.
Post-competition protests and litigation
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