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Tag: Artemis 3

  • The Billionaire Space Race Is Really Heating Up

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    As the U.S. races China to the Moon, two billionaires are locked in a space race of their own. NASA has offered both Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin a chance to return astronauts to the lunar surface, and the competition just got interesting.

    A bombshell report by Ars Technica’s Eric Berger has revealed exactly how Blue Origin plans to beat SpaceX to a crewed Moon landing. Internal documents obtained by Ars reportedly detail the accelerated mission architecture Blue Origin will use to attempt to land astronauts on the Moon without the highly complex orbital refueling SpaceX’s approach requires.

    Gizmodo could not independently verify the contents of the documents Ars reviewed, and Blue Origin did not respond to a request for comment.

    The rivalry ramps up

    Before we dive into Blue Origin’s new lunar strategy, a bit of context. On Sunday, Musk sent shockwaves through the spaceflight community by announcing that SpaceX—a company built on its founder’s dream of colonizing Mars—has pivoted toward building a Moon city instead.

    The move marks a seismic shift in the company’s strategic vision. After all, it was only a year ago that Musk called the Moon a “distraction,” insisting that SpaceX is “going straight to Mars.” Still, it’s not altogether surprising, as Musk’s company is currently at risk of losing its Artemis 3 lunar lander contract to Blue Origin.

    The morning after Musk announced SpaceX’s Moon pivot, Bezos posted an ominous photo of a turtle peering out from the shadows (this is relevant—promise). As Berger insightfully points out, the image—unccompanied by text—is almost certainly a nod to Blue Origin’s mascot: a tortoise. Bezos has previously explained that the tortoise is a reference to “The Tortoise and the Hare,” one of Aesop’s Fables.

    It appears that in his eyes, Blue is the tortoise that will beat SpaceX—the hare—to a crewed lunar landing through slow and steady development.

    NASA’s Artemis 3 mission will be the first to return humans to the Moon since the Apollo era. In 2021, the agency contracted SpaceX to build a crew lander for the mission, called the Starship Human Landing System (HLS). NASA originally hoped the lander would be ready in time to launch Artemis 3 by 2024, but significant developmental delays pushed the mission back to 2028 and prompted the agency to reopen the contract in October.

    Since then, Blue has emerged as SpaceX’s competitor for the Artemis 3 lander contract. Bezos’s company is actively prepping its Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) cargo lander for its first test flight, slated to launch this year. Its success would pave the way for the MK2 crew lander, and if that vehicle is ready to fly before the Starship HLS, Musk can kiss his Artemis 3 contract goodbye.

    Blue Origin’s new plan

    Here’s how Blue Origin plans to pull this off. The documents reviewed by Ars reportedly detail two missions: an uncrewed demo mission and a crewed demo landing.

    Berger reports that the uncrewed flight will require three launches of Blue’s New Glenn rocket. The first two will put two “transfer stages” (specialized upper stages designed to move a vehicle from one orbit to another) into low-Earth orbit, and the third will put a smaller version of the MK2 lander, called “Blue Moon MK2-IL,” into orbit. These three vehicles will dock to each other and the first transfer stage will boost them into an elliptical orbit around Earth.

    The first stage will then separate and fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere. That’s when the second transfer stage will take over, boosting the MK2-IL lander into an elliptical orbit around the Moon. The lander will then separate, descend to the lunar surface, and ascend back into low-lunar orbit.

    The crewed landing will require four New Glenn launches, three to put three transfer stages into LEO and a fourth to launch MK2-IL and a docking port. All four vehicles will dock to the port. The first transfer stage will boost the stack into an elliptical Earth orbit, and the second will push it to rendezvous with NASA’s Orion spacecraft—carrying a crew of astronauts—in a specialized, highly stable orbit around the Moon.

    Orion will dock with MK2-IL to allow the crew to board. The third transfer stage will then move MK2-IL into a low-lunar orbit and separate, allowing the lander to descend to the lunar surface and then ascend to re-rendezvous with Orion.

    Sounds easy enough, right? Not quite. While this approach will not require orbital refueling, Blue Origin still must prove it can pull off complex dockings and deep-space maneuvers it has never attempted before, as Berger notes. So while Blue Origin is aiming for an uncrewed Moon landing later this year—potentially ahead of SpaceX’s 2027 target—both companies remain far from the finish line.

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • Blue Origin Shows Off Its MK1 Lunar Lander—and It’s Way Bigger Than Apollo’s

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    Riding the high of its show-stopping New Glenn flight earlier this month, Blue Origin is now aiming even higher—toward the Moon. Now, the company’s lunar ambitions seem more tangible than ever with the unveiling of the Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) lunar lander.

    In an X post on Friday, Blue Origin owner and founder Jeff Bezos shared a first look at MK1. This 26-foot-tall (8-meter-tall) cargo lander is expected to embark on its first mission during the first quarter of 2026, touching down near the Shackleton crater at the Moon’s south pole.

    Attempting this feat within the next four months will be high risk, high reward for Blue Origin. If Blue can pull off an uncrewed lunar landing before SpaceX, it could give the company a strategic advantage as NASA reevaluates lander providers for Artemis 3. But the tight timeline and complex hardware will present numerous challenges.

    Bezos’s big lander

    According to Bezos, MK1 is smaller than Blue Origin’s human lander, MK2, but larger than NASA’s Apollo lander. This single-launch spacecraft is designed to launch aboard New Glenn and ferry up to 3.3 tons (3 metric tons) of payload to the lunar surface.

    The Blue Moon Pathfinder mission will demonstrate and validate the lander’s hardware and systems. This includes its never-before-flown BE-7 engine, cryogenic fluid power and propulsion systems, avionics, continuous downlink communications, and precision landing.

    MK1 will also be carrying a NASA payload called SCALPSS (Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies). This array of cameras will collect imagery during and after MK1’s descent, gathering critical data to assist future Moon landings and improve NASA’s understanding of how they affect the lunar surface.

    MK1 is the largest commercial cargo lander ever built, capable of carrying far more payload than any of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) landers. MK1’s height could put it at greater risk of toppling over during its landing attempt, especially if its critical landing precision and control systems do not perform as expected.

    Blue Origin will soon conduct “fully integrated checkout tests” of MK1, according to Bezos. This refers to ground tests that will evaluate performance for all the lander’s systems and hardware to ensure that it’s ready for flight.

    This could help Blue anticipate and address issues during MK1’s deployment and landing attempt, but because it cannot fully replicate the lunar environment, unforeseen challenges could still arise.

    Crunch time

    Blue Origin’s goal of launching Blue Moon Pathfinder before the end of Q1 is very ambitious. Achieving an uncrewed lunar landing is a critical milestone that Blue ought not to rush, as ensuring mission success will require meticulous testing and validation of all systems.

    Still, the timing appears to be right for several reasons. New Glenn achieved every single one of its mission objectives during its second test flight on November 13, indicating that it’s ready to launch a lunar landing mission. MK1’s development appears to be on track, and in theory, it could be ready to launch within the next several months—though ground testing could result in delays.

    Perhaps the biggest motivator, however, is the Artemis 3 carrot dangling in front of Bezos’s face. NASA originally tapped SpaceX to build the Human Landing System (HLS) that will deliver the Artemis 3 astronauts to the Moon in mid-2027, but significant delays prompted the agency to reopen the contract in October.

    Blue Origin has since stepped up to the plate. NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens previously told Gizmodo that the agency is evaluating plans from both SpaceX and Blue Origin for acceleration of Artemis 3 lander production. SpaceX detailed its plans to simplify the HLS architecture in late October, but leaked internal documents suggest the company still won’t be ready for an Artemis 3 launch until September 2028.

    If NASA decides to go with Blue instead, it would be the company’s MK2 lander that would carry the Artemis 3 crew to the surface of the Moon. Demonstrating an uncrewed lunar landing with MK1 is a critical step toward the deployment of MK2, as these two landers share much of the same systems and hardware.

    Hitting this milestone within the next four months would certainly give Blue a competitive edge, as SpaceX is nowhere close to a lunar landing. Still, Bezos ought not to let ambition get in the way of the Pathfinder mission’s success—especially with a NASA payload onboard. Failure could set the company’s lunar program back years.

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • SpaceX’s Starship Lunar Lander Could Be ‘Years Late,’ NASA Safety Panel Warns

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    NASA aims to return astronauts to the Moon by mid-2027—a feat that would fulfill a decade of preparation. The agency may have to extend that timeline even further, however, as slow progress on SpaceX’s lunar lander threatens to delay the Artemis 3 mission.

    During a public meeting on Friday, members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel warned that the Human Landing System (HLS) version of Starship could be “years late,” SpaceNews reports. The panel reached that conclusion following a visit last month to SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas.

    “The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 Moon landing,” said panelist Paul Hill, former director of Mission Operations at NASA.

    Another Artemis delay—so what?

    Putting American boots back on the Moon is a top priority for NASA. With a new space race underway, global powers including the U.S., China, and Russia are vying for a first-mover advantage.

    Whoever reaches the lunar surface first will be able to set certain ground rules about who can do what and where. This would not only reinforce that country’s influence on the Moon and in space but also give it strategic leverage as military operations increasingly depend on space-based assets.

    “This is a pivotal moment for our nation’s space program,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during a hearing on legislative priorities for NASA earlier this month. He went on to emphasize that space has become a “strategic frontier with direct consequences for national security, economic growth, and technological leadership.”

    How did we get here?

    In 2021, NASA contracted Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a version of Starship capable of landing astronauts on the Moon. At that time, the agency aimed to accomplish a landing by 2024, but that target date has been pushed back in recent years.

    Development of Starship HLS has slowed significantly as SpaceX has struggled with repeated explosive failures this year. While Starship’s most recent test flight on August 26 was a success, unmet technical milestones have piled up.

    One major issue is demonstrating the cryogenic propellant transfer needed to refuel Starship in low-Earth orbit before the rocket heads to the Moon, Hill said during the Friday meeting. Developmental delays for Starship 3—the first iteration capable of in-orbit fuel transfers—have slowed progress toward this goal.

    Hill also pointed to potentially competing priorities for SpaceX between Starlink and Starship HLS, SpacePolicyOnline.com reports. Starship 3 will be integral in launching the third generation of Starlink satellites while simultaneously creating the on-orbit fuel depots and lunar lander for Artemis 3.

    “The next six months of Starship launches will be telling about the likelihood of HLS flying crew in 2027 or by the end of the decade,” Hill said.

    Despite these concerns, the panelists emphasized that SpaceX is still the only launch provider for the job. “There is no competitor, whether government or industry, that has this full combination of factors that yield this high a manufacturing and flight tempo, with their direct effects on reliability increases and cost reduction,” Hill said.

    The downside to relying on SpaceX, however, is clear: Without a launch-ready Starship HLS by 2027, Artemis 3 won’t get off the ground on time.

    Back in 2023, NASA selected Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to provide a second lunar lander, dubbed Blue Ghost, to be used during the Artemis 5 mission later this decade. The contract is worth $3.4 billion and includes a development team consisting of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics.

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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