Bezos' Blue Origin to Collaborate on Moon Lander

Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company Blue Origin will partner with several companies, including Lockheed Martin, on a lunar lander for NASA that can bring humans to the surface of the moon and back.

“We have put together a national team to go back to the moon,” Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994, said at the 70th International Astronautical Congress in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, according to CNBC.

Blue Origin has taken the primary role in a group that includes Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper in bidding a system for the Artemis program after President Donald Trump declared that NASA should land astronauts on the moon again by 2024.

"We could not ask for better partners,” Bezos said on Tuesday. "This is a national team for a national priority."

Blue Origin will command a lunar lander team to provide the Descent Element used to bring a crew down to the surface of the moon. This will be derived from the Blue Moon lander that the company revealed months ago. Lockheed Martin will provide a reusable Ascent Element to bring the crew back to lunar orbit, and the Orion capsule that will hold the astronauts. The company also will supervise Blue Origin’s flight crew training and operations.

Bezos said that Lockheed Martin “are experts in life support systems and so to have their expertise on the Ascent Element is a really big deal.”

Northrop Grumman, which built the original Lunar Module used by the Apollo program, will build a Transfer Element used to bring the lunar lander close to the moon before the lander separates. Draper will provide guidance and navigation systems, which it did for the Apollo program as well.

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