The latter will be responsible for developing a crucial element. You have backups."īlue Origin's lander, dubbed Blue Moon, is being developed with several partner companies, including Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic, Honeybee Robotics, and Lockheed Martin. We want two landers," NASA boss Bill Nelson said on Friday. NASA in 2022 also chose the SpaceX lander for its Artemis 4 mission, but at the same time requested submissions from other companies for the rest of the program.
The space agency had originally intended to offer two contracts, a practice commonly used to guard against the possibility one fails, but said it had been constrained by budget concerns. The contract was worth $2.9 billion, although SpaceX is supplementing that amount with its own funding.īlue Origin had also competed for the first contract, and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against NASA when SpaceX was chosen as the sole lander provider.
BEZOS OFFERS FOR LUNAR LANDER TO SERIES
In 2021, the US agency chose SpaceX to build a lander for Artemis 3, the first mission in the series to have actual astronauts set foot on the lunar surface. The Artemis program marks NASA's return to the Moon after more than 50 years and is made up of several missions, each with increasing complexity.
The contract amounts to $3.4 billion, but John Couluris, vice-president in charge of lunar transport at Blue Origin, said during a press conference that the company would itself contribute "well north" of that amount to develop the craft.
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