SPACE: SpaceX wins $2.9B contract to fly astronauts to the moon.

The move comes a year after the agency named three companies to design and build human landing systems. In addition to SpaceX, NASA also selected Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, which partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper on its approach, and Dynetics (a Leidos company) out of Huntsville, Alabama. The total combined value for those contracts was $967 million for a 10-month base period.

Interestingly, the Post reported that SpaceX received the smallest award in the initial go-round: $135 million compared to $579 million for Blue Origin, which was reportedly “furthest along” in its development.

Blue Origin has so far underperformed expectations.