Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Is Spending $3.4 Billion+ For Moon Landing Contract

After a prolonged fight that saw NASA initially pick SpaceX for a multi-billion dollar contract to land humans on the lunar surface, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin won the contract for the second lunar lander. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced the decision earlier today, and NASA's Jim Free explained that Blue Origin's lunar lander would be used as part of NASA's Artemis 5 mission.

Blue Origin's Lunar Lander Expected To Take Flight In 2030s

The award is part of NASA's Artemis program that aims to develop a sustained human presence on the human. The first Artemis flight occurred late last year, and the second mission is slated for late 2024. This mission will see a crew of astronauts orbit around the Moon, and the first lunar landing will be through the Artemis 3 mission.

NASA awarded SpaceX a $3 billion contract for the Human Landing System (HLS) in 2021 - a decision dubbed controversial by Blue Origin, who argued that the agency had to choose two lunar landers. NASA had justified its decision by maintaining that it had the sole authority to pick the number of awards - a fact that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld.

The matter finally ended in court, which ruled in favor of NASA and SpaceX, and NASA opened up another contract for a second human landing system. The award for that system was made today, and in response to a question from Joey Roulettte of Reuters, Blue Origin's vice president for lunar transportation, Mr. John Couluris, shared that his company was "contributing over 50% of the total effort to get to not only this mission but to ensure permanence."

Blue Origin's Blue Moon lunar lander. Image: Blue Origin

NASA's Jim Free shared that the award was roughly 3.5 billion dollars, and the space agency had evaluated two bids for the competition. A NASA press release confirmed that the contract was worth $3.4 billion, and Mr. Couluris provided details about his firm's contributions by outlining that "Blue Origin is contributing well north of 3.4 billion dollars as part of this effort." Cumulatively, this puts the spending on the HLS's Sustaining Lunar Development Program at more than $6 billion.

The Blue Origin representative also shared details about his firm's lunar lander. He revealed that the Blue Moon lunar lander will operate in two configurations. The first is a crew configuration capable of landing four astronauts on the lunar surface in different conditions and will be flown as part of the Artemis 5 mission. The second is a cargo configuration capable of carrying 20 metric tons in a roundtrip to and back from the Moon and 30 metric tons for a one sided mission aimed towards developing a lunar camp.

The lander will be fueled by a cislunar transporter from low Earth orbit (LEO) to the near rectilinear halo orbit (NHRO) - the Blue Moon's parking orbit. A new addition to Blue Origin's National Team is Boeing, which will design systems to let the lander dock to the Gateway.

Mr. Couluris added that before the first crew landing occurs, Blue Origin will land an exact copy of the lander to test the lander's systems and architecture a year before the landing. This test will be preceded by other test launches, and Blue Origin is currently developing flight hardware for its Blue Moon mark one lander to develop technologies for future landers. Blue Origin will land several vehicles before a crewed mission, with these tests culminating in a test of a complete lunar lander. The lander is built for Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, and can be reused as well.

Written by Ramish Zafar