Nasa has decided that only the industrial corporation Northrop Grumman can supply it with an astronaut habitation module in time to meet the White House’s directive of landing humans on the moon again by 2024.

The decision was made public in a Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition document that was published on 19 July 2019.

This move bypasses Nasa’s traditional approach to awarding contracts for its spacecraft.

Usually it requests bids from industry and then evaluates the responses but in this case, Nasa decided such a procedure would take too much time.

Northrop Grumman’s habitation module will be based on its existing Cygnus cargo craft that currently supplies the International Space Station (ISS).

The main body of Cygnus is pressurised and this will be converted into a habitation module for astronauts. It will be part of the Lunar Gateway, a small space station in orbit around the moon that will act as a layover point for astronauts before they descend to the lunar surface.

In May, Nasa announced that Maxar Technologies would provide the Gateway’s power and propulsion element, which will be mated to the Cygnus-derived habitation module. Launch is scheduled for December 2023.