When the Artemis II crew splashed down in April 2026, completing the first crewed lunar mission in more than fifty years, the procurement machinery behind the mission had already turned its attention forward.
The 2,700-plus suppliers across 47 states who contributed to the flight, from ground support fabricators to suppliers of space-grade electronic components, were being repositioned around Artemis III, a landing mission, and the longer-range infrastructure questions that follow. For defense services contractors like HX5, which has spent the past several years building a NASA presence alongside its defense portfolio, that shift is the opening they have been preparing for.
Where the Artemis Supply Chain Opens Up for Mid-Tier Firms
The program’s most visible prime relationships are well established. Lockheed Martin builds the Orion crew vehicle. Boeing supplies the Space Launch System core stage. Northrop Grumman manufactures the solid rocket boosters. Amentum and Bechtel hold the Exploration Ground Systems prime. These relationships involve billions of dollars accumulated over more than a decade, and they’re not accessible to a services company with roughly 1,000 employees.
Understanding where work flows beneath those prime relationships is the starting point for competing at HX5’s scale. From fiscal years 2012 through 2022, NASA obligated approximately $40 billion to around 860 contractors across the Artemis campaign, and each of those prime contracts carries subcontracting requirements that push work toward smaller businesses. Engineering analysis, research support, data systems work, mission operations support: these are the categories that sit at the boundary between what large primes do and what they source from the market below them.
That market is also where NASA’s own independent contract vehicles operate. The agency runs solicitations specifically designed to bring in technical workforce capacity without the overhead of new program development. They’re built for firms where past performance in technically demanding government work matters more than size.
Margarita Howard on What a Defense Background Buys at NASA
Margarita Howard founded HX5 in 2004 on a base of Department of Defense engineering and R&D contracts. The company now operates across more than 20 states at approximately 70 government locations, with veterans making up more than 30% of its roughly 1,000-person workforce.
Howard described HX5’s NASA expansion as a deliberate extension of competencies already built in the defense environment.
“When we expanded into new markets — space and advanced aerospace — that was a learning curve for us,” she said. “We had to really quickly learn the programmatic requirements for those highly advanced programs, and some of it was daunting. We leaned heavily on subject matter experts, found them, hired them, and relied on their expertise. We also built partnerships with established players in those fields to help us navigate some of the most difficult parts of those programs.”
That distinction runs through how HX5 approaches NASA opportunities. Defense contractors who assume that a strong DoD past performance record automatically translates into NASA contract wins often miscalculate. The agencies share some evaluation criteria but differ in mission focus, in how they weight contractor experience, and in what kinds of demonstrated capability they consider relevant.
HX5’s Position as Artemis III Procurement Moves Forward
The most directly relevant near-term contract vehicle for services firms at HX5’s scale is the Engineering Services and Science Capability Augmentation II contract, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
The solicitation, released in February 2026, covers a $1.9 billion contract ceiling and gives NASA flexible access to a workforce across twelve engineering and science disciplines: flight mechanics, trajectory design, avionics, flight software, materials, propulsion systems, and related areas. It’s a technical augmentation vehicle rather than a hardware development program, which puts it squarely in the service category where firms like HX5 compete.
NASA weighted the evaluation in a way that rewards technical capability over price compression. Mission suitability is the primary factor; cost is the least important. A stronger technical proposal at a higher price can beat a cheaper one with weaker capabilities. Small business plan quality is scored at 150 points within a 1,000-point mission suitability evaluation. For a firm the size of HX5, with an established DoD engineering record and active security clearance infrastructure, that scoring framework is favorable.
NASA’s Inspector General has flagged supply chain visibility as a persistent weakness in the Artemis campaign. Performance issues with subcontractors have at times gone unshared across NASA programs, and the agency’s reactive approach to supplier problems has contributed to schedule delays and cost growth. For new entrants, that environment cuts both ways: vetting can be slow and relationship-dependent, but firms with verifiable track records in comparable mission environments carry an advantage over competitors with shorter or less documented histories.
Artemis III is currently targeted for 2027. The infrastructure procurement cycle for sustained lunar operations is moving in parallel, covering terrain vehicles, long-duration mission support, and research and habitat systems.
For defense services contractors with the right past performance and the patience to build a NASA presence methodically, the window is open.