The US space company Blue Origin from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been awarded the contract by NASA to build a new lunar lander. This is to be used for the Artemis 5 moon landing mission planned for 2029.
The US space company Blue Origin from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been awarded the contract by NASA to build a new lunar lander. As the US space agency announced on Friday, the Blue Moon lander is to be used in the Artemis 5 moon landing mission planned for 2029. The order to Blue Origin has a volume of 3.4 billion dollars (3.15 billion euros).
Two years ago, NASA commissioned the space company SpaceX from technology billionaire Elon Musk to build a lunar lander. With the Artemis 3 moon landing mission planned for the end of 2025, this should bring astronauts to the moon again for the first time in more than 50 years. SpaceX was then also selected for the subsequent moon landing mission Artemis 4.
Blue Origin had already applied in the tender for the Artemis 3 lunar lander and was inferior to SpaceX. The company then went to court and complained about “mistakes” in the award procedure. However, Blue Origin failed with the lawsuit.
Blue Origin has now been awarded the contract for Artemis 5. Company boss Bezos was “honored” in the online service Twitter about bringing astronauts to the moon together with NASA.
NASA said it would be beneficial to have two lunar lander providers, SpaceX and Blue Origin. “We want more competition. We want two landing guides,” said NASA boss Bill Nelson. That means more “reliability” and forms an important “backup”. Nasa also argues that its approach drives innovation and reduces costs.