Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin places new bid for NASA contract after losing to SpaceX in 2021

Jeff Bezos’ space tourism company Blue Origin is taking a second shot at NASA’s Sustaining Lunar Development contract to support Moon landing missions under the Artemis Program. The firm revealed on Wednesday to have “submitted its proposal for NASA’s SLD program to help the US establish a sustained lunar presence”. Blue Origin is part of the National Team which includes other major companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Draper, Astrobotics and Honeybee Robotics. 

NASA first started handing out contracts to develop Moon landing systems in 2021 when it awarded a $2.89 billion deal to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The company was picked for the development of its next-generation mega-rocket Starship which will be used to transport astronauts from the lunar orbit to the lunar surface. 

While Starship is yet to fly in its debut launch, it is being touted as a vehicle that would take humans to Mars. Apart from being the world’s most powerful rocket, Starship has the advantage of being fully reusable which sets it apart from NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS rocket). The SLS took off with the Orion spacecraft for the first time on November 16 to launch the Artemis 1 mission, which is scheduled to end on December 11 with Orion’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. 

(Image: NASA)

The idea behind inviting bids for the development of a human landing system is simple yet complicated. First, the astronauts will board Orion, which will be launched to the Moon using the SLS rocket, and set out for a two-day journey to the Moon. Once the Orion is in the lunar orbit, two of the four astronauts will transfer to a new vehicle (Starship or any new option) for the final leg of their journey to the lunar surface. 

As per the current plans, those astronauts will explore the surface for a week and again board the Starship to get into Orion parked in orbit for a journey back to Earth. NASA intends to land humans on the Moon as soon as 2025 under the Artemis 3 mission, however, it will start sending them to the lunar orbit with Artemis 2 planned no earlier than 2024. Currently, SpaceX is the best option for NASA which is why it handed another $1.15 billion contract in November this year to develop a new Starship for a second crewed landing demonstration mission in 2027 as part of Artemis 4.