- Nasa is paying a Colorado-based organization $1 (£0.74) to gather a little example of rocks from the moon.
Lunar Station is among four firms granted agreements to recover lunar regolith, or moon soil, for the US space office, for a sum of $25,001.
Nasa will utilize the dirt in its Artemis program, which plans to send the following man and a lady to the moon by 2024.
It is additionally attempting to build up a plan of action for the extraction, deal and utilization of off-Earth assets.
The other winning bidders were California-based Masten Space Frameworks and Tokyo-based ispace, alongside its European auxiliary.
Nasa will be paying the organizations for singular assortments of lunar regolith somewhere in the range of 50g and 500g in weight.
"The organizations will gather the examples and afterward give us visual proof and other information that they've been collected," a representative for Nasa said in a statement. Once this has occurred, responsibility for material will move to Nasa.
The financing is so low since Nasa is just paying for the assortment of the regolith, no of the organizations' turn of events or transport costs, office authorities said.
Colorado-based Lunar Station, a mechanical technology firm, will gather moon rocks from the lunar South Pole.
"The arrangement is for the mission to occur in 2023, yet we are working with a few diverse lander organizations, which could bring about a prior dispatch date," Lunar Station President Justin Cyrus told the BBC.
The charge isn't the inspiration for these organizations. There are relied upon to be numerous logical advantages to the mission, for example, permitting firms to work on removing assets from the lunar surface.
Mr Cyrus called it "a change in outlook in the manner in which society ponders space investigation".
The organization is in talks with Blue Birthplace - a space investigation firm set up by Amazon organizer Jeff Bezos - and a few different organizations previously planning trips to the moon, about going with them.
Among the other winning offers, Japan's ispace will be paid $5,000 for its proposed assortment in 2022 on the Moon's north-eastern close to side.
Not about the cash
"The ostensible measure of even a dollar is a significant point of reference that Nasa is setting," said Sinead O'Sullivan, a space master.
"The advancement here isn't of monetary worth however of making business and lawful standards of making a market of purchasers and merchants outside of Earth's limitations," she added.
The honors for the three organizations will be paid in a three-venture measure. An aggregate of 10% of the assets at the hour of the honor, 10% when the organization dispatches its assortment shuttle, and 80% when Nasa confirms the organization gathered the material.
"Truly, the $1 will come in three little yet significant portions of $0.10, $0.10, and $0.80," kidded Mr Cyrus.
The space organization's declaration on Thursday comes as China directs its own lunar example assortment mission.
The Chinese Chang'e-5 lunar rocket is right now on its way back to Earth with tests from the moon.
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