NASA is tapping Blue Origin to deliver lunar rovers to the Moon Base system

Jeff Bezos’ space business ‘Blue Origin’ has won NASA approval to bring crewed rovers to the lunar surface as part of the space agency’s ten-year plan to build a base near the moon’s south pole.

“America is returning to the moon,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman today at a press conference at the space agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC.

NASA has awarded Blue Origin an initial $188 million contract to prepare its robotic Blue Moon Mark 1 rover to deliver lunar vehicles, or LTVs, with an option period worth $280.4 million for two work orders. The timing of the selection will be based on Blue Origin’s performance during the first contract, NASA said.

Carlos Garcia-Galan, NASA’s Moon Base program manager, said the LTVs “will be a cross between an Apollo lunar roving vehicle and a Mars-style rover.” Each rover will weigh less than one metric ton, he said, and will fold up to fit on Blue Origin’s slide during the trip to the moon.

The first LTV will be delivered a month before the arrival of the Artemis 4 crew, currently scheduled for 2028, Garcia-Galan said.

One of the LTVs will be built by California-based Astrolab, with Seattle-based Interlune serving as a subcontractor. In a LinkedIn post, Interlune said it will work with Astrolab “on many aspects of the rover’s development, including life sciences on the lunar surface.” The Interlune Research Lab in Texas will develop a variety of simulated lunar debris specifically for testing by Astrolab’s moon rover, designated CLV-1.

Another LTV will be the Lunar Outpost’s Pegasus rover in Colorado, which is being developed in partnership with General Motors, Goodyear and Leidos.

Both LTVs are designed to travel at speeds of up to 10 kilometers per hour (6 mph), carrying up to two astronauts on trips of 10 kilometers (6 miles). Robots can also take robotic journeys with a radius of 200 kilometers (125 miles). Astrolab is getting a $219 million contract, while the Lunar Outpost contract is worth $220 million, NASA said.

In a statement sent to X, Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin said it is proud to support NASA’s plans for a permanent presence on the south side of the moon. The company’s CEO, Dave Limp, also called out Isaacman on his social media account.

“From the beginning, Blue Origin has been committed to Lunar Permanence,” Limp wrote. “Thanks, @NASAadmin, for sharing that idea. We’re ready to make it a reality.”

NASA will also develop an array of MoonFall rockets for testing and communication. The drones will be built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Garcia-Galan said they will be landed on the moon by Firefly Aerospace’s Elytra Dark spacecraft from Texas. Firefly said its contract for the delivery of four drones is worth $75 million.

NASA’s Moon Base program may officially begin this fall with the launch of Endurance, Blue Origin’s first Blue Moon Mark 1 launcher. Endurance, which is currently undergoing pre-flight testing, is scheduled to deliver several payloads to the south lunar surface – including a retroreflector system for measuring distances and a camera system to study how the thrusters interact with the lunar surface. The first Blue Moon mission has been in the works for more than a year, but Garcia-Galan said it is now known as Moon Base 1.

The Moon Base 2 mission requires a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to deliver Astrobotic’s Griffin lander from Pittsburgh to the moon later this year. Griffin will be carrying more than 1,100 pounds of cargo. One of the payloads is the Astrolab rover equipped with an Interlune imaging system capable of scanning the lunar surface for traces of the vital helium-3.

For the Moon Base 3 mission, Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Trinity lander will fly the first payload selected by NASA’s program known as Payloads and Probes to the Moon, or PRISM. Lunar Vertex will examine lunar orbits – bright spots on the moon’s surface that are thought to be caused by magnetic disturbances. The landlord will also bear the payment burdens of the European Space Agency and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute.

“These represent the first of more than a dozen campaigns that we expect to announce for the balance of this year, as we come back, build a foundation, and not lose the month again,” said Isaacman.

Moon Base 1 and the LTV delivery are not the only lunar missions in which Blue Origin plays an important role. For example, the company’s second Mark 1 owner is tasked with delivering NASA’s VIPER rover to the lunar surface in late 2027.

Blue Origin is also working on the Blue Moon Mark 2 lunar probe that could carry future Artemis crews to the lunar surface. NASA intends to test Mark 2 and/or SpaceX’s Starship-based lunar lander next year in low Earth orbit during the Artemis 3 mission.

“We’re already making significant progress with both Blue Origin and SpaceX on their lander concepts,” said Lori Glaze, associate director of NASA’s Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate. “There are a lot of commercial studies going on right now, to make sure we have the right equipment designs and the right targets for those.”

Isaacman said NASA’s strategy calls for “using the NASA playbook from the 1960s, figuring out what works and what doesn’t in this survival science.”

The announcements made today focus on the first phase of NASA’s Moon Base program, which aims to establish reliable access to the lunar surface and demonstrate resources in the south polar region, where important reserves of water ice are thought to exist.

The second phase of the project, scheduled for the period 2029-2032, calls for the establishment of the operational infrastructure of the moon, including energy resources that rely on solar or nuclear energy. During the third phase, NASA and its partners will establish a permanent base.

“We envision a moon base of hundreds of square miles, with different assets building up to the goal of a permanent moon presence,” Garcia-Galan said.

Isaacman said “there are a lot of good things that will come from having an army on the moon,” with the ability to prepare for long-distance missions topping his list.

“There will be scientific discoveries,” he said. “Let’s take land rovers with radio telescopes to go to the side of the moon. Let’s wake up the orbital economy. These are all things that would be nice to have and accomplish on the way, but really it’s to have a place where we can work with water ice and develop capabilities where we’re going next, which is Mars. … Mars one day.”