NASA selects Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to develop crewed landing system for agency’s Artemis V mission
Published Date – Sat 05/20/23 07:50 AM
Photo: IANS
Washington: In a fierce competition with Elon Musk-run SpaceX, NASA on Friday selected Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to develop the agency’s Artemis V moon landing mission. Manned landing system.
NASA’s award is worth $3.4 billion, and Blue Origin says its own contribution is “significantly higher” than that. The project led by Blue Origin is a $7 billion+ project.
Blue Origin’s national team partners include Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic and Honeybee Robotics.
“Honored to be on the journey to put astronauts on the moon with @NASA”, this time to stay. Together we will solve the evaporation problem and make LOX-LH2 the storable propellant combination that advances the state of the art for all deep space missions,” Bezos tweeted.
Blue Origin will design, develop, test and validate its Blue Moon lander to meet NASA’s Crewed Landing System requirements for regular astronaut expeditions to the lunar surface, including docking with the Gateway, which is where astronauts transfer in lunar orbit space station.
In addition to the design and development work, the contract includes an uncrewed demonstration mission to the moon ahead of a crewed demonstration Artemis V mission in 2029.
The total award value of the fixed-price contracts was $3.4 billion.
“We are pleased to announce that Blue Origin will build the Human Landing System as NASA’s second supplier to bring Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The agency previously contracted with Musk’s SpaceX to demonstrate the initial crewed landing system for the Artemis III mission.
Under the contract, the agency also directed SpaceX to improve its design to meet the agency’s requirements for sustainable exploration and demonstrate the lander on Artemis IV.
Through Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, make more scientific discoveries, and prepare for future astronaut missions to Mars.
