Yesterday, at the International Astronautical Congress 2019 being held in Washington, D.C., Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin’s founder, announced an alliance of his company with other aerospace giants to work together within NASA’s Artemis program and bring humans back to the Moon by 2024. At the base of the solution he proposed, called Human Landing System, there’s the Blue Moon lunar lander unveiled by Bezos himself in May 2019.
For some time Jeff Bezos, known above all as the founder and CEO of Amazon, has been expressing his ambition to be at the forefront in the aerospace field, starting the development of a giant rocket and more recently proposing a lander for missions to the Moon. He also made a deal with ULA, one of the most important launch operators with its Atlas V rocket, to supply them with the engines that will be used for their new Vulcan rocket. Now the announcement of an even broader alliance has arrived with companies that have been working with NASA for decades to participate in the Artemis lunar mission.
According to NASA plans, the Artemis program will use the new SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and the Orion spacecraft. The original announcement called for the return of humans to the Moon by 2028 but Donald Trump soon started pressing for the Moon mission to be accomplished by 2024, evidently counting on being re-elected and consequently being the US president who will have brought Americans back to the Moon.
There’s a lot of skepticism about the possibility of completing the Artemis lunar mission by 2024 with the SLS and the Orion spacecraft currently still under development. Now Jeff Bezos offers his Human Landing System solution for the final part of the mission, the astronauts’ Moon landing and their following ascent, with the following roles of the various partners:
- Blue Origin will be the first contractor supplying the vehicle called the Descent Element to land on the Moon based on the Blue Moon lander.
- Lockheed Martin will develop the reusable vehicle called the Ascent Element.
- Northrop Grumman will develop the vehicle called the Transfer Element that will bring the landing system down towards the Moon.
- Draper will develop the descent guidance and flight avionics.
The hope for Jeff Bezos is that the big names that are part of this alliance can convince the US Congress that the proposed solution will allow the Artemis Moon mission to be carried out by 2024 and allocate funds to develop this project. The future of the Artemis program is not yet clear so we can expect delays and plan changes. So far Blue Origin has not yet completed a real mission of transporting human beings, it would be a real success to be able to supply the lander to get them to the Moon.
