Astronaut John Young salutes the U.S. flag on the moon during the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. America's next moon landing will be made by private companies, not NASA. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Thursday that nine U.S. companies will compete in delivering experiments to the lunar surface.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — America’s next moon landing will be made by private companies — not NASA.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Thursday that nine U.S. companies will compete to deliver experiments to the lunar surface. The space agency will buy the service and let private industry work out the details on getting there, he said.

The goal is to get small science and technology experiments to the surface of the moon as soon as possible. The first flight could be next year; 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing.

“We’re going at high speed,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science mission directorate. NASA officials said the research will help get astronauts back to the moon more quickly and keep them safer once they’re there. The initial deliveries likely will include radiation monitors, as well as laser reflectors for gravity and other types of measurements, according to Zurbuchen.

Bridenstine said it will be up to the companies to arrange their own rocket rides. NASA will be one of multiple customers using these lunar services.

The announcement came just three days after NASA landed a spacecraft on Mars. NASA wants to see how it goes at the moon before committing to commercial delivery services at Mars.

This new partnership is loosely modeled after NASA’s successful commercial cargo deliveries to the International Space Station, as well as the still-unproven commercial crew effort. SpaceX and Northrop Grumman, formerly Orbital ATK, have been making space station shipments since 2012. SpaceX expects to start transporting astronauts to the orbiting lab next year; so does Boeing.

Altogether, these Commercial Lunar Payload Services contracts have a combined value of $2.6 billion over the next 10 years.

The nine companies are: Astrobiotic Technology, Pittsburgh; Deep Space Systems, Littleton, Colorado; Draper, Cambridge, Mass.; Firefly Aerospace, Cedar Park, Texas; Intuitive Machines, Houston; Lockheed Martin, Littleton; Masten Space Systems, Mojave, Calif.; Moon Express, Cape Canaveral; and Orbit Beyond, Edison, N.J.