Jeff Bezos unveils ‘Blue Moon’ spacecraft, plans 2024 lunar landing

Amazon founder and head of space company Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos unveiled on Thursday a lunar lander that he said would be used to transport equipment, and possibly human beings, to the south pole of the moon by 2024. At the presentation in Washington, Bezos said, "This is Blue Moon,” while curtains lifted to show a mock-up of a huge vessel weighing several tons and able to carry four self-driving rovers. “It’s an incredible vehicle, and it will go to the moon,” he declared.

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Manufacturing on Moon

“We were given a gift — this nearby body called the moon. The moon is a good place to begin manufacturing in space due to its lower gravity than the Earth. Getting resources from the moon takes 24 times less energy to get it off the surface compared to the Earth and that is a huge lever," Jeff Bezos said.

According to him, the Blue Moon lander can bring 3.6 metric tons to the lunar surface and has been under development for the past three years according to Bezos. It will be capable of carrying scientific instruments as well as rovers for human exploration. He also unveiled the company’s BE-7 rocket engine at the event which he declared will be test-fired for the first time in the coming months. Bezos also informed that many parts of the engine were 3D printed.

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Lunar base for further solar exploration

The goal of the company is to land on the moon’s south pole where ice has been discovered. This is a huge boon as water extracted from this can be used to produce hydrogen, which in turn could fuel future exploration of the solar system. A permanent settlement on this side of the moon can become an industrial outpost for solar exploration. Blue Origin plans to begin building the infrastructure of a lunar base. The first mission was proposed for 2020, in partnership with the Boeing-built NASA Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. But last year, Jeff Bezos indicated his company may develop Blue Moon on its own.

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Time to go back to the moon and stay

However, Bezos did not announce a specific date for the project’s first launch but said the lander would be ready in time to make US President Donald Trump’s announced timeline to return humans to the moon by 2024. Just this year, the world celebrated NASA's 50th anniversary of sending the first men to the moon in 1969. “We can help make that timeline, but only because we started three years ago,” Bezos said. “It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.”

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