Blue Origin building lunar lander for NASA's manned Artemis V mission
Jeff Bezos' space travel firm Blue Origin have been selected by NASA to help astronauts make it to the lunar surface with their Blue Moon lander.
The company have landed a $3.4 billion contract to provide the lander for the space agency's Artemis V mission to the Moon.
Blue Origin will design, develop, test, and verify its Blue Moon lander to meet NASA's human landing system requirements for recurring astronaut expeditions to the lunar surface, including docking with Gateway, a space station where crew transfer in lunar orbit.
In addition to design and development work, the contract includes one uncrewed demonstration mission to the lunar surface before a crewed demo on the Artemis V mission in 2029.
"Today we are excited to announce Blue Origin will build a human landing system as NASA's second provider to deliver Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "We are in a golden age of human spaceflight, which is made possible by NASA's commercial and international partnerships. Together, we are making an investment in the infrastructure that will pave the way to land the first astronauts on Mars."
For the Artemis V mission, NASA's SLS (Space Launch System) rocket will launch four astronauts to lunar orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft. Once Orion docks with Gateway, two astronauts will transfer to Blue Origin's human landing system for about a weeklong trip to the Moon's South Pole region where they will conduct science and exploration activities.
