Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos, will join NASA’s lunar lander program — competing against Elon Musk’s SpaceX to develop spacecraft intended to ferry astronauts to the moon’s surface.

NASA announced Friday that Blue Origin will work to prepare its Blue Moon lander concept for a mission dubbed Artemis V, which is slated to take off as soon as 2028. Artemis V would be the third in a series of missions under NASA’s lunar program that’s expected to land humans on the moon.

Blue Origin will develop its lunar lander alongside partners Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic and Honeybee Robotics. Altogether, the price tag for Blue Origin’s lunar lander development program is likely worth more than US$7 billion.

The contract is worth about US$3.5 billion, according to Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development. And “Blue Origin is contributing well north of US$3.4 billion as part of this effort,” said John Couluris, the company’s vice president for lunar transportation.

“We want to establish permanence on the moon, and we want to ensure that we have consistent access to the moon,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson added.

“So with that in mind, Blue Origin itself is contributing over 50% of the total effort to get to not only this mission but to ensure permanence.”

SpaceX was awarded the first lunar lander contract — worth US$2.9 billion — in April 2021, setting up the company to develop a version of its forthcoming Starship spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis III mission. It’s expected to launch as early as 2025.

It’s not clear whether NASA and SpaceX will hit that deadline. Starship exploded last month after its inaugural test launch attempt.

Blue Origin has been fighting for a role in the Artemis lunar lander contracts — called Human Landing System — for years.

NASA said from the beginning that it hoped to have more than one company working to develop lunar landers capable of carrying humans. But after awarding a single-source contract to SpaceX, the space agency repeatedly cited costs as the reason.

Still, NASA awarded SpaceX another contract option in November, giving the company a pathway to also provide the lunar lander for the Artemis IV mission, slated for 2027.

While SpaceX plans to use Starship, a gargantuan rocket and spacecraft system designed to function on its own, Blue Origin had a more straightforward plan to develop a lunar lander — similar to those used for the Apollo missions. Blue Origin’s lunar lander would ride as a payload on a separate rocket.

Words to Learn相关词汇

【探月计划】

tànyuè jìhuà

lunar program

a space program to explore the moon

【定于】

dìngyú

slated for

be expected to happen in the future

杰夫•贝佐斯创立的太空公司蓝色起源将加入美国宇航局的登月计划，与埃隆•马斯克的SpaceX竞争，开发旨在将宇航员送上月球的航天器。

美国宇航局周五宣布，蓝色起源公司将加入阿耳忒弥斯5计划，最快2028年将其“蓝月球”登月车送上月球。阿耳忒弥斯5是宇航局登月计划系列任务中的第三个，该计划预期将人类再次送上月球。

蓝色起源将与合作伙伴洛克希德马丁，德雷珀，波音，宇宙机器人和蜜蜂机器人公司一起研发月球登陆器。

蓝色起源登月计划的总投资可能超过70亿美元。美国宇航局负责勘探系统开发的副局长吉姆•弗里称，该合同价值约35亿美元。

“作为计划的一部分，蓝色起源公司将出资34亿美元，”该公司负责登月的副总裁约翰•库鲁里斯说。

“我们希望在月球上建立永久基地，确保能够持续访问月球，”美宇航局局长比尔•尼尔森补充说。“介于这一点，蓝色起源将贡献超过50%的总投资，不仅完成当前任务，还要确保建立永久基地。”

2021年4月SpaceX获得了第一份价值29亿美元的月球着陆器合同，开启了该公司的星舰飞船项目，用于执飞美宇航局的阿尔忒弥斯3任务，预计最早于2025年发射。

目前尚不清楚该项目是否能如期完成。星舰飞船上个月首次升空后爆炸。

蓝色起源多年来一直争取加入阿尔忒弥斯登月计划。

美国宇航局从一开始就表示，希望不止一家公司致力于开发载人登月着陆器，但在授予SpaceX一份合同后，航天局一再表示没钱发包新合同。

尽管如此，美国宇航局去年11月授予SpaceX另一个合同，让该公司研发阿尔忒弥斯4任务中的登月航天器，计划2027年发射。

SpaceX计划使用星舰飞船，这是一个独立运行的庞大火箭和航天器系统；蓝色起源则计划研发类似阿波罗计划的月球登陆器，作为有效载荷搭载在独立火箭上。(SD-Agencies)