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NASA is looking for alternatives to SpaceX’s Starship HLS, presenting Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin with a great opportunity.
ByChris Young
Blue Origin is closing out the year in style. Jeff Bezos’ private space company launched its first fully operational orbital New Glenn mission earlier this month. Now, it’s revealed its Mark 1 (MK1) lunar lander.
Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder and owner, shared a first look image of MK1 in an X post on Friday. Impressively, the lander is scheduled to fly to the Moon in early 2026. Once there, the uncrewed lander will touch down near the Shackleton crater at the Moon’s south pole.
Blue Origin famously filed a lawsuit against NASA after the space agency chose SpaceX’s Starship as its lunar lander. That lawsuit was struck down. Now, the tables seem to have turned. Blue Origin’s progress puts pressure on SpaceX, as the design of its own modified Starship lunar lander causes delays to NASA’s Artemis program.
Blue Origin presented with a historic opportunity
The world works in mysterious ways. Back in 2021, the US Court of Federal Claims struck down Blue Origin’s lawsuit against NASA, in which it claimed the space agency had unfairly awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract for a lunar lander.
Now, Blue Origin is aiming to land MK1 on the Shackleton crater within the next four months. If it is successful, this would mean the company has successfully performed a lunar landing before SpaceX. It would give the company a major strategic advantage, especially as SpaceX’s Starship program has delayed NASA’s lunar ambitions. In fact, according to a recent Gizmodo report, NASA is seriously eyeing potential replacements for SpaceX’s Starship HLS. This means there is a very real possibility that Blue Origin could end up flying the Artemis 3 astronauts to the Moon after all.
The Artemis 3 lunar landing mission has faced several delays, and it is currently scheduled to fly in 2028. It will be the first time NASA has landed humans on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. However, now there is a serious concern that China will beat NASA back to the Moon. SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) is facing delays due to the complexity of on-orbit refueling. With NASA exploring alternatives, this could present a significant opportunity for Blue Origin.
Blue Origin’s MK1 lander
Of course, all of this is a big if. As recent events have shown, landing on the Moon is no easy feat. Intuitive Machines, for example, recently saw its Odysseus lander touch down on its side, while Russia’s Luna-25 crashed in 2023 due to a propulsion system issue.
As Bezos mentioned in his post, MK1 stands at over 26 feet tall (8 meters). This makes it smaller than the company’s MK2 lander, but larger than the historic Apollo lander. This size is important, as Artemis astronauts will spend roughly a week on the lunar surface, meaning they require more space—the longest Apollo mission, Apollo 17, spent 72 hours stationed on the Moon. However, MK1’s height increases the risk of it tipping over during landing.
For Blue Origin’s upcoming mission, called Blue Moon Pathfinder, the company aims to demonstrate and validate MK1’s hardware and systems. This includes its propulsion systems, avionics, and its BE-7 engine. The mission will also carry NASA’s SCALPSS (Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies) instrument, which will collect valuable data on lunar landings.
MK1 is designed to launch aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. It can carry a payload of up to 3.3 tons (3 metric tons) to the lunar surface. According to Bezos, the company will soon conduct “fully integrated checkout tests” of MK1 to prepare for the launch of Blue Moon Pathfinder in Q1 2026.
Original:
https://interestingengineering.com/space/blue-origin-could-land-on-the-moon
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