Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin wins Nasa contract to build lunar lander

WASHINGTON – A team led by billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin has won a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) contract to build a spacecraft to send astronauts to and from the Moon’s surface.

Nasa’s decision will give the agency a second ride to the Moon under its Artemis programme, after it

awarded Mr Elon Musk’s SpaceX US$3 billion (S$4 billion) in 2021

to land astronauts on the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission in 1972.

Those initial missions using SpaceX’s Starship system are slated for later this decade.

Friday’s announcement in Washington evoked deja vu for Amazon.com founder Bezos and defence contractor Dynetics, the head of a partnership with Northrop Grumman.

Those companies lost out to SpaceX for the 2021 contract, part of an initial moon lander procurement programme.

Nasa under that programme said it could pick up to two companies, but blamed budget constraints for only going with SpaceX.

This new contract offered a second chance for Mr Bezos, who since founding Blue Origin in 2000 has invested billions into the company to compete for high-profile commercial and government space contracts with SpaceX, a dominant force in satellite launches and human spaceflight.

After losing in 2021, Blue Origin

unsuccessfully fought to overturn Nasa’s decision to ignore its Blue Moon lander,

first with a watchdog agency and then in court.

Blue Origin and lawmakers had pressured Nasa to award a second lunar lander contract to promote commercial competition and ensure the agency has a backup ride to the moon.

Nasa in early 2022 announced the programme for a second lander contract.

Nasa chief Bill Nelson said at the time: “I promised competition, so here it is.”

Blue Origin has said little about its latest moon lander proposal beyond naming its corporate partners: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, spacecraft software firm Draper and robotics firm Astrobotic.

Northrop Grumman, previously a key partner in Blue Origin’s unsuccessful Blue Moon bid in 2021, switched teams to join its former rival Dynetics.

Nasa’s multi-spacecraft plan for the Artemis moonshots involves its Space Launch System rocket launching astronauts toward the Moon aboard the Lockheed-built Orion capsule.

That will dock in space with a lunar lander that will ferry the crew the rest of the way to the Moon’s surface. REUTERS