NASA Gives Blue Origin a $3.4 Billion Moon Human Landing System Contract

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NASA has awarded Blue Origin a $3 billion moon human landing system (HLS) contract.

Blue moon lander is different than Glenn, Glenn refuels it and then the lander will take things from Gateway to lunar surface. Lockheed Martin vehicle goes from LEO to Gateway.

The Blue Origin landers will stay at the Gateway orbit when they are not on the moon.

The system is wastefully complicated to justify Gateway.

Blue Origin will design, develop, test, and verify its Blue Moon lander to meet NASA’s human landing system requirements for recurring astronaut expeditions to the lunar surface, including docking with Gateway, a space station where crew transfer in lunar orbit. In addition to design and development work, the contract includes one uncrewed demonstration mission to the lunar surface before a crewed demo on the Artemis V mission in 2029. The total award value of the firm-fixed price contract is $3.4 billion.

“Today we are excited to announce Blue Origin will build a human landing system as NASA’s second provider to deliver Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We are in a golden age of human spaceflight, which is made possible by NASA’s commercial and international partnerships. Together, we are making an investment in the infrastructure that will pave the way to land the first astronauts on Mars.”

For the Artemis V mission, NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket will launch four astronauts to lunar orbit aboard the Orion spacecraft. Once Orion docks with Gateway, two astronauts will transfer to Blue Origin’s human landing system for about a weeklong trip to the Moon’s South Pole region where they will conduct science and exploration activities. Artemis V is at the intersection of demonstrating NASA’s initial lunar exploration capabilities and establishing the foundational systems to support recurring complex missions in lunar orbit and on the surface as part of the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.

Adding another human landing system partner to NASA’s Artemis program will increase competition, reduce costs to taxpayers, support a regular cadence of lunar landings, further invest in the lunar economy, and help NASA achieve its goals on and around the Moon in preparation for future astronaut missions to Mars.

The agency previously contracted SpaceX to demonstrate an initial human 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.

12 thoughts on “NASA Gives Blue Origin a $3.4 Billion Moon Human Landing System Contract”

  1. Where will the money come from? SpaceX gets priority on the original Artemis allocations so they will get paid, but the odds of BO getting paid promptly if at all are poor because THERE IS NO MONEY FOR THE SECOND LANDER.

  2. There was no “2 year halt caused by the FAA”. Starship simply wasn’t ready to launch in 2021 or 2022. If you actually followed the development program you’d know that. Stick to the facts.

  3. Bezos learned his lesson, making it much more polished and streamlined. But specially, by making it bigger.

    This is a chonky lander with several tens of tons of payload, not a space dingie. And it seems to be reusable as well. And orbit-refillable.

    SLS got another competitor it seems. Now let’s see if they deliver.

    • At this point, aside from that one render, both BO and Nasa are still touting the earlier, smaller version. So it appears that all they’ve got are some fairly obscure design goals, and a single render.

      If I’m reading this right, when SpaceX came back with a proposal that blew right past meeting NASA’s minimum requirements for the lander, NASA upgraded the requirements and reissued the solicitation, and this new lander concept from BO is their attempt to meet the more aggressive requirements.

      It seems it may be unfair to say that BO is getting paid more than SpaceX for the lander, because apparently when NASA reissued the required specs, the contract was modified to add another $1.15B.

      I’m finding it a bit hard to find the actual specifications they have to meet; Nasa hasn’t exactly made its site easy to navigate if you’re looking for that sort of thing.

  4. So, BO, which has hugely less of a track record, and is promising a much smaller lander, gets $3.4B to SpaceX’s $2.9B.

    And anybody want to bet that a company that’s been around longer than SpaceX, and never yet reached orbit, is going to deliver a working Moon lander system? What, is it going to be the very first thing they deliver to orbit?

    • It is not fair. SpaceX would deserve more. I think it is because they don’t want to be too dependent on 1 launch provider and want more competition in that field.
      Probably Bezos lobbied extensively and so they gave him the contract.

      • No, I can understand the government’s desire to have a second option in case SpaceX fails, or the FAA just gets really obstructive. (Remember, Starship development has resumed after about a 2 year halt caused by the FAA.)

        Still, what are the odds that BO is even going to deliver?

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