Blue Origin, founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, is an American aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company. It develops reusable rocket engines, launch vehicles like New Shepard and New Glenn, in-space systems, and lunar landers such as Blue Moon. Blue Origin is also a NASA partner, collaborating on the Artemis program for lunar exploration and working towards a sustainable human presence on the Moon, with partners like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Draper. Key activities include space tourism, satellite deployment capabilities, and advancing technologies to lower space travel costs.
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The total award value of the firm-fixed-price contract with Blue Origin is $3,400,000,000.
Draper is a member of the Blue Origin-led National Team developing the human lunar lander.
Lockheed Martin is part of the Blue Origin-led National Team that won a NASA contract to develop and demonstrate a human landing system under NASA’s Human Landing System program.
NASA selected Blue Origin of Kent, Washington to develop a human landing system for the agency’s Artemis V mission to the Moon.
Blue Origin plans to invest well north of $3,400,000,000 to develop the Blue Moon lander.
The fixed-price award to Blue Origin to develop the Blue Moon lander is $3,400,000,000.
Under the SLD contract, Blue Origin will develop solar-powered 20-kelvin cryocoolers and other technologies to prevent LOX-LH2 boil-off.
Both Blue Origin and Dynetics received funding from NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) Appendix N effort in September 2021 to mature technologies such as engines for their landers.
NASA selected Blue Origin to develop a second Artemis lunar lander for the Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) award on 2023-05-19.
Zero-boiloff cryogenic propellant technology is a key enabling technology for Blue Moon, and Blue Origin has been funding zero-boiloff technology such as a cryocooler that operates at 20 kelvins.
Blue Origin’s Uncrewed Flight Test (UFT) proposal uses a fully matured crewed lander configuration that includes life support systems and the ability to launch back to near-rectilinear halo orbit.
Blue Origin plans a 2023-03-01 version of the Blue Moon lander for test launches and landings to prove technologies before crewed use.
Blue Origin proposed a series of pathfinder lander missions in 2024 and 2025 to mature key low-TRL technologies before the required uncrewed test flight.
Under the SLD contract, Blue Origin and its National Team partners will develop and fly a cislunar transporter.
Blue Origin is funding the 2024 and 2025 pathfinder lander missions with no financial impact to NASA.
Blue Origin manufactures the BE-4 engines and has test stands where the BE-4 engines have been fired many times.
Telesat previously planned to use rockets still under development by Blue Origin and Relativity Space to deploy the Lightspeed constellation.
Blue Origin will develop a Metallic Thermal Protection System with support from NASA Ames and NASA Langley.
Blue Origin in Kent, Washington received two 2022 ACO selections involving NASA Langley, NASA Marshall, and NASA Ames.
Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser vehicles will support the company’s commercial space station development and will work with Blue Origin and others on the Orbital Reef station.