Bezos’ Blue Origin wins NASA astronaut moon lander contract

NASA has issued Jeff Bezos a moon ticket.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration awarded Blue Origin, the billionaire’s space company, a significant contract on Friday to develop a crewed lunar lander for sending astronauts to the moon’s surface later this decade as part of the agency’s Artemis program.

In essence, the project will cost more than $7 billion. NASA’s agreement grant is worth simply more than $3.4 billion, authorities said Friday, and Blue Beginning VP John Couluris said the organization will contribute “well north” of the agreement’s worth too.

“We’re making an additional investment in the infrastructure that will pave the way to land the first humans on Mars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in announcing the Blue Origin award. “Our shared ambitions now are no less lofty than when President [John F.] Kennedy dared a generation of dreamers to journey to the moon.”

Bezos said in a tweet Friday he’s “honored to be on this journey with @NASA to land astronauts on the Moon — this time to stay.”

The Blue Beginning drove group — which incorporates Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic and Bumble bee Mechanical technology — beat the proposition of a group drove by Leidos-claimed Dynetics.

Leidos said that “helping NASA with the inspiring efforts to return to the Moon will remain a priority.” The company highlighted its existing and ongoing work on NASA systems and said the team is “committed to continuing to assist on these critical missions.”

In documents released on Friday, NASA associate administrator for the agency’s exploration division, Jim Free, wrote that the agency received two additional proposals for the SLD contract, but neither was deemed “fully compliant with solicitation requirements” As a result, the proposals were quickly rejected.

The competition, which NASA called the Sustaining Lunar Development, or SLD, was basically a second chance contest after SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, won the first crew lander contract in 2021.

The Human Landing System, or HLS, was SpaceX’s first project, and it awarded the company a contract to create an Artemis-specific variant of its Starship rocket. NASA was expected to select two winners prior to the HLS award; however, due to SpaceX’s more affordable bid and the agency’s budget at the time, only one winner was selected.

HLS and SLD are both part of NASA’s Artemis program to land astronauts on the moon. The agency hopes to begin flying crews to the moon’s surface in the coming years. NASA completed the first Artemis mission in December, flying its Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket and Orion spacecraft around the moon for the first time without any human participants.

Free wrote that Blue Origin’s plan had “compelling” advantages, such as two uncrewed pathfinder missions in 2024 and 2025, early-stage technology maturation, additional lander capabilities, and a “reasonable and balance” price. He mentioned just two weaknesses in Blue Origin’s bid, noting an issue with its plan for communications during flights as well as “numerous conflicts and omissions” in the schedule.

He stated that Dynetics’ “uncertain” and “unclear” aspects of its plan did not outweigh the strengths that Free emphasized. Free wrote that the price point of the company was also “substantially higher in amount” than that of Blue Origin, something that NASA did not disclose.

Blue Origin lodged numerous protests following SpaceX’s complete victory over the HLS contract. After challenging the award through the Government Accountability Office, Bezos’ company filed a lawsuit against NASA in court after the GAO denied the company’s protest.

The claim prompted competing between the extremely rich people, with Blue Beginning considering SpaceX’s Starship an “immensely complex & high risk” approach, alluding to analysis made by NASA authorities in assessing the organization’s HLS bid.

Bezos personally offered a lunar lander contract in exchange for covering $2 billion in NASA costs over two years a month prior to the lawsuit. Even though Bezos sweetened the offer during court discussions to cover “over $3 billion” with private funding, NASA did not publicly respond to the offer.

As the preliminary worked out, Musk reached out and announced, “You cannot sue your way to the moon, no matter how good your lawyers are.”

Before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled in NASA’s favor, which cleared the agency and its officials of wrongdoing, the Blue Origin lawsuit halted work on the HLS contract for much of 2021.

Competition with Starship Nelson stated, “Competition is critical to our success,” when he explained the reasoning behind a second bidding process last year to add another privately built lunar lander.

“We can leverage that money by working with a commercial industry and, through competition, bring those costs down to NASA,” Nelson said during Senate testimony in 2022.

In the interim, SpaceX has continued to develop its nearly 400-foot-tall Starship rocket. In April, the company attempted to launch the vehicle into space for the first time, but it exploded in mid-flight. Musk recently stated that he anticipates SpaceX reaching orbit around the Earth with its next launch and that the company will spend approximately $2 billion on Starship development this year.

Under the HLS contract, NASA awarded SpaceX an additional $1.15 billion last year, exercising its option to purchase a second crewed demonstration landing from the company. As a result, SpaceX’s HLS contract will have a total value of $4.2 billion through 2027.

Federal records indicate that SpaceX has received approximately $1.8 billion from NASA under HLS to date.