Mars exploration has always been the exclusive domain of national space agencies, but NASA is trying to change that. Awarding a dozen research projects to private companies In view of commercial support for future missions to the Red Planet.

It's the second time in a month that the agency has expressed interest in more or less commercial support for Mars missions. Aborted the original Mars sample return mission. In favor of alternatives possibly deployed by private space companies.

A total of nine companies were selected to conduct twelve “concept studies” on how they could provide Mars-related services, from payload delivery to planetary imaging to communications relay. While each award is relatively small — between $200,000 and $300,000 — these studies are an important first step for NASA to better understand the costs, risks and feasibility of commercial technologies.

The selected companies are: Lockheed Martin, Impulse Space, and Firefly Aerospace for small payload delivery and hosting services; United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, and Astrobotic for large payload delivery and hosting services; Albedo, Redwire Space, and Astrobotic for Martian surface imaging services; and SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, and Blue Origin for the Next Generation Relay Series.

NASA said in a statement that nearly all of the selected proposals would adopt existing projects focused on the Moon and Earth. The twelve-week studies will conclude in August, and there is no guarantee that they will lead to future requests for proposals or contracts. That said, it's equally unlikely that future contracts will appear without a study that isn't first sought by a company.

The companies were acquired through a request for proposals issued by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory earlier this year. According to the request, the idea is to develop a new paradigm for Mars exploration, providing “more frequent low-cost missions” through a partnership between government and industry.

The plan is similar to the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which awards large contracts to private companies to deliver payloads to the Moon. And like CLPS, which Helped bankroll the first successful private lunar lander. (among others), these latest awards also show that the agency is working with small, early-stage startups working on unproven technology.