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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 23 2019, @12:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the imagine-a-spherical...pork? dept.

Jeff Bezos announces Blue Origin will form new industry team to return to the Moon

At the International Astronautical Congress in Washington, D.C. today, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos announced a new "national team" that will join forces in order to help return humans to the Moon via NASA's Artemis program. They'll focus on developing the Human Landing System that will be used to achieve this goal.

Blue Origin will serve as lead contractor for this new industry collaboration, which will also include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. The partnership will serve to pursue NASA's stated mission of getting the first American woman and next American man to the surface of the Moon by 2024.

Each partner in this new alliance will take on specific roles pertaining to helping NASA achieve its goal. Blue Origin is going to be acting as the primary contractor and lead the program management of the partner involvement, as well as take on systems engineering, and responsibilities for safety and mission assurance. They'll also provide the descent element of the overall the human landing system, which will consist of the Blue Moon lander and the BE-7 engine that will provide its propulsion.

Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin will be developing the 'Ascent Element' vehicle and Northrop Grumman is building the 'Transfer Element' to get the whole landing element Blue Origin is providing in place towards the Moon. Longtime space industry non-profit Draper will lead the descent guidance efforts and produce flight avionics.

Also at Ars Technica and CNBC.

Related: Jeff Bezos Details Moon Settlement Ambitions in Interview
NASA Announces 19 Space Act Agreements, with a Focus on Returning to the Moon


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday October 23 2019, @04:04PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday October 23 2019, @04:04PM (#910839) Journal

    Elon Musk is absolutely dominating the launch industry, and Jeff Bezos is selling rocket engines to ULA. It remains to be seen if Virgin Galactic will do anything worthwhile, but the similarly tourist-oriented Bigelow Aerospace is producing inflatable modules for the ISS.

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