Blue Origin on $3.4 Billion Lander Project

Photos courtesy of J. Chadwick Gay man landing system for the Artemis III mission. Under that contract, the agency also directed SpaceX to evolve its design to meet the agency’s requirements for sustainable exploration and to demonstrate the lander on Artemis IV. As a result of the contract with Blue Origin to demonstrate on Artemis V a lander that meets these same sustainable lander requirements, including capabilities for increased crew size, longer mission duration, and delivery of more mass to the Moon, multiple providers will be available to compete for future opportunities to fulfill NASA’s lunar surface access needs for Artemis missions.

“I'm happy to be working with the Blue Origin team, as well as their other partners, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics, several of which have a presence here in Huntsville,” said Lisa Watson-Morgan, NASA Human Landing System Program Manager. “Since 2019, nearly $3.4 billion has come to the center under the HLS program contracts with a plan for an additional $10 billion planned over the next five years, should things go well, which I anticipate that they will.”

Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts – including the first woman and first person of color –to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for crewed missions to Mars. Together, the SLS rocket, Orion, Gateway, advanced spacesuits, and human landing systems are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.

The Artemis mission is drawing on what was learned during the Apollo 11 lunar module (LM) moon landing in 1969, and that information is still relevant today and vitally important to the Artemis mission.

“The LM was an incredible effort,” said John Couluris, Blue Origin Vice President for Lunar Transporta- tion. “All of Apollo … that was the great pathfinder for what we're doing today. What we're doing today, though, is ensuring that we have reliable repeatable, low costaccess to anywhere on the moon day or night. So, we're trying to ensure lunar permanence – a permanent presence of humanity on the moon. And that's why this architecture is so different. We have to carry four astronauts anywhere on the moon for stays over 30 days with a module if that's the case. So, there's a lot more capability in this architecture and a lot more capability in the lander than there was in those early days. Those early days, though, of course, provided us with a knowledge base to now be where we are today.”

“I'm looking forward to continuing our successful partnerships and expanding an already thriving relationship with Blue Origin,” said Jody Singer, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Director. “Marshall Space Flight Center currently has 24 active agreements with Blue Origin, which represents more than $20 million of reimbursable funding being paid to Marshall Space Flight Center in this area of our expertise and code, including propulsion and materials testing. As well, on-site we have a test stand that was once used to test the Saturn 4 and the shuttle, which is now being leased by Blue Origin to test their BE-4 engines. You know, it's so exciting to think we'll soon be test-firing lander engines on that test stand, and we'll be hearing the skies rumble.” w