2023-05-19 21:17:52
DAmazon founder Jeff Bezos’ US space company Blue Origin has been awarded the contract by NASA to build a new lunar module. As the US space agency announced on Friday, the lander called Blue Moon 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 module. This is intended to bring astronauts to the moon again for the first time in more than 50 years with the Artemis 3 moon landing mission planned for the end of 2025. SpaceX was also selected for the subsequent moon landing mission Artemis 4.
Blue Origin had already applied for the Artemis 3 lunar module tender 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. CEO Bezos said he was “honoured” to take astronauts to the moon with NASA.
NASA said it would be beneficial to now have two lunar module providers, SpaceX and Blue Origin. “We want more competition. We want two landers,” said NASA CEO Bill Nelson. That means more “reliability” and forms an important “backup”. Nasa also argues that its approach drives innovation and reduces costs.
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