Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin, U.S. military company Boeing and Lockheed Martin announced yesterday that they will team up to pitch a lunar lander to NASA. Previously, Jeff Bezos had lost out to Elon Musk in a bid for the lunar lander contract.
Musk and Bezos are space rivals
The proposal to jointly develop a lunar lander, led by Blue Origin, is the second attempt by the companies to win the coveted lunar lander contract. NASA, which is currently looking for more options for a lunar landing under its multibillion-dollar Artemis program, set a deadline yesterday for the proposal, and the agency expects to announce the winner in June 2023.
Last year, NASA chose Elon Musk’s SpaceX to carry out the first few Artemis missions to the moon over the next 10 years, rejecting a bid from a team led by Blue Origin largely because of funding constraints. Later, NASA put out another bid for a second lunar lander option as a backup to the SpaceX lunar lander.
In a brief statement posted on its website yesterday, Blue Origin disclosed that its team had submitted a bid to NASA for a second lunar lander project, saying that “in partnership with NASA, the team will achieve a sustained presence on the Moon. Blue Origin’s team also includes spacecraft software company Draper, space robotics company Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics, a manufacturer of military and civilian robotic systems that has been acquired by Blue Origin.
