It’s up to Jeff Bezos’ company to create the lunar lander that will make history. NASA awarded it Blue Origin. NASA works with tenders, because it is a government company. For example, we recently saw that Axiom Space has made a great prototype of an astronaut suit and now it is up to Blue Origin to take care of the construction of the lunar lander.
Blue Origin
The lunar lander is going to make history because it’s part of the larger Artemis mission, which is going to put the first woman and the first person ever on the moon. That should happen in 2025, but that’s during the Artemis III mission. Blue Origin must fully comply with NASA’s requirements to allow astronaut expeditions to the lunar surface and dock with Gateway, a space station in lunar orbit where the rockets will drop them off.
The contract is worth $ 3.4 billion, but there is a good chance that Blue Origin will also pay a lot. Mission V is scheduled for 2029, so it still has some time to develop. NASA writes, “Today we are thrilled to announce that Blue Origin will build a human landing system as NASA’s second supplier to deliver Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface We are in a golden age of human spaceflight, made possible by NASA’s commercial and international partnerships. Together we are investing in the infrastructure that paves the way for the first astronauts to land on Mars.”
Artemis v
For the Artemis V mission, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will carry four astronauts to lunar orbit via the Orion spacecraft. “Once Orion docks with Gateway, two astronauts will transfer to Blue Origin’s human landing system for about a week’s journey to the moon’s south pole, where they will conduct scientific and research activities. Artemis V stands at the juncture of demonstrating NASA’s initial lunar exploration capabilities and establishing the core systems to support recurring complex lunar orbit and surface missions as part of the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.”
So big plans, not only for the moon mission, but also for the one to Mars. Although that will take much more time: we will not be able to do that before 2030 anyway.
