Bezos' Blue Origin Gets $3.4B NASA Contract to Build Moon Lander

2 years after losing out to SpaceX
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 20, 2023 6:00 AM CDT
Bezos' Blue Origin Gets $3.4B NASA Contract to Build Moon Lander
This image provided by Blue Origin shows the Blue Moon lander. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin received a $3.4 billion contract Friday, May 19, 2023, to develop a lunar lander named Blue Moon. It will be used to transport astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2029.   (Blue Origin via AP)

Jeff Bezos' rocket company has won a NASA contract to land astronauts on the moon, two years after it lost out to SpaceX, the AP reports. Blue Origin received a $3.4 billion contract Friday to lead a team to develop a lunar lander named Blue Moon. It will be used to transport astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2029, following a pair of crew landings by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. NASA will get astronauts to lunar orbit using its own rockets and capsules, but wants private companies to take over from there.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the agency wants different landing options as it seeks a return to the moon more than a half-century after the end of the Apollo moonshots. Blue Origin is kicking in billions of dollars, on top of the NASA contract, to help establish a permanent presence on the moon. “We have a lot to do before we successfully land and return astronauts," said John Couluris, a Blue Origin vice president.

Two years ago, Blue Origin sued after NASA awarded SpaceX the contract for the first lunar landing. A federal judge upheld the space agency’s decision. NASA’s Artemis program, which follows the 1960s and 1970s Apollo moonshots. kicked off with a successful test flight late last year. Launched atop NASA's new moon rocket, an empty Orion capsule went into lunar orbit before returning home. The next Artemis flight will come late next year when one Canadian and three US astronauts fly to the moon and back, without landing. Two Americans would descend to the lunar surface aboard a SpaceX Starship on the mission after that, no earlier than late 2025.

(More Blue Origin stories.)

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