Blue Origin Awarded NASA Contract to Provide Lunar Lander for Artemis V Moon Mission
Via NASA
Summary
NASA awarded Blue Origin a $3.4 billion contract in May 2023 to design, develop, and test a human landing system for the Artemis V mission, making Jeff Bezos's aerospace company the program's second lunar lander provider alongside SpaceX. Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander, standing approximately 52 feet tall, will dock with the Gateway lunar orbital station before descending to the Moon's surface, with the contract including an uncrewed demonstration landing before the crewed Artemis V mission currently scheduled for 2029.
Blue Origin will partner with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics to build the system, competing architecturally with SpaceX's Starship-based lander contracted for earlier Artemis missions. The award followed Blue Origin's unsuccessful legal challenge to NASA's 2021 sole-source contract award to SpaceX, which was resolved only after Congress appropriated additional funds specifically to enable selection of a second provider.
