https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/03/nasa-selects-four-companies-for-moon-material-collection-as-it-seeks-to-set-precedent-on-private-sector-outer-space-mining/

NASA has selected the winning candidates that they’ve decided to tap to collect lunar resources for eventual Earth return, from a number of commercial companies who applied. The four companies all have rides booked on future commercial lunar lander missions, and the agency is using this as a demonstration of what kinds of efficiencies it can realize by piggybacking on private industry for serving its needs – and a precedent-setting event for NASA paying private companies to retrieve materials that they retrieved and owned privately for their own purposes prior to transferring ownership to the agency.

The winning bids were evaluated based on two simple criteria: Basically, were they technically feasible, and how much did they cost. There were four winners, each with a different ride out, which will seek to satisfy the conditions of NASA’s request, which is basically to collect a lunar regolith (essentially what we call ‘soil’ on the Moon) in an amount ranging from between 50 grams or 500 grams, with retrieval to be handled separately by NASA at a later date. The samples had to be collected before 2024 as part of the request, which sets them up for potential retrieval via NASA’s Artemis mission series, though the agency isn’t necessarily going to actually pick up the samples, though it reserves the option to do so.