WASHINGTON — Blue Origin has unveiled a full-sized mockup of an uncrewed version of its Blue Moon lunar lander that will test technologies intended for a crewed version it is developing for NASA’s Artemis effort.
In social media posts Oct. 27, the company showed images of the Blue Moon Mark 1 mockup, located at an engine manufacturing facility in Huntsville, Alabama. The lander is designed to deliver three tons of cargo to the lunar surface.
The first flight of Blue Moon Mark 1 will be what the company calls the “Pathfinder Mission,” designated MK1-SN001. “MK1-SN001 proves out critical systems, including the BE-7 engine, cryogenic fluid power and propulsions systems, avionics, continuous downlink communications, and precision landing,” the company stated on its website.
Blue Origin said that future Mark 1 landers, starting with MK-SN002, will be available to carry customer payloads. Blue Origin is one of 14 companies that are part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program for uncrewed lunar landings. The company, though, did not state when the Pathfinder Mission or future Blue Moon Mark 1 landers might launch.
“There’s two Mark 1 lunar pathfinder landers that will fly on early flights of New Glenn,” Ben Cichy, senior director of engineering of lunar permanence at Blue Origin, said on a panel discussion at AIAA’s ASCEND conference Oct. 23, but was not more specific about launch dates.
John Couluris, senior vice president of lunar transportation at Blue Origin, said on a panel at the American Astronautical Society’s von Braun Space Exploration Symposium Oct. 25 that the Mark 1 lander was part of a continuum that includes the Mark 2 lander intended for crewed landings. NASA selected that lander as part of its Human Landing System (HLS) program in May, joining SpaceX’s Starship.
He noted that NASA’s requirements for HLS include landing within 100 meters of a designated location. Blue Origin is…
Read the full article here