Why did the bill to NASA grow by tens of millions of dollars?

 

In May 2019, NASA announced that it would pay Intuitive Machines $77 million to send five payloads to the moon.

Intuitive Machines and other companies in its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS, have signed fixed-price contracts to deliver NASA payloads to the moon. Such contracts mean that if something goes wrong and costs increase, generally it is the companies, and not NASA, that would cover the difference.