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  SpaceX’s Starship vehicle is seen landing on the Moon. [credit:
  NASA ]

NASA announced Thursday that it has awarded three contracts to begin initial development of lunar landing systems that will take astronauts down to the surface of the Moon in less than five years.

With these Human Landing System awards, space agency officials reiterated in an interview that they remain committed to landing a pair of astronauts on the Moon by 2024 and building a sustainable presence by 2028. Asked if 2024 was still “on the table” despite the COVID-19 pandemic and myriad other challenges with such an aggressive timeline, NASA’s chief of human spaceflight, Doug Loverro, replied, “It’s not only on the table, it is the table.”

The awards are notable both for their diversity and NASA’s apparent willingness to take a chance on SpaceX and its out-of-the-box concept with its ambitious Starship system.