Bezos's group will build lunar landers for NASA

In a statement released on May 19, NASA said Blue Origin will design, test and develop a lander as part of the Artemis program, NASA's initiative to return humans to the Moon.

Blue Origin boss Jeff Bezos introduces the Blue Moon lunar lander at an event in Washington, US on May 9, 2019. Photo: Reuters

“Today, we are pleased to announce that Blue Origin will build a human landing system as NASA's second provider to deliver Artemis astronauts to the surface of the Moon,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.

Bidding documents show that the proposal from Dynetics Corp. raised concerns about whether the Blue Origin competitor could meet technical requirements and was priced “significantly higher” than Blue Origin.

Under the contract, the company of billionaire Jeff Bezos, who is also the boss of Amazon, is tasked with landing NASA astronauts on the Moon and then returning them to Earth.

Meanwhile, billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX will be responsible for using the Super Heavy rocket and Starship spacecraft to take astronauts and the aforementioned lander from Earth to lunar orbit.

Blue Origin will first conduct an unmanned flight to the Moon to demonstrate the capabilities of its lander, followed by a flight to send astronauts to Earth's only natural satellite.

Friday’s announcement was a long-awaited outcome for Mr. Bezos, who has invested billions of dollars in Blue Origin to compete with SpaceX, which dominates satellite launches and human spaceflight.

Mai Anh (according to NASA, Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/tap-doan-cua-ty-phu-bezos-se-che-tao-tau-do-bo-len-mat-trang-cho-nasa-post248503.html