have said a second commercial system for crewed lunar landings is needed to ensure competition and redundancy. Some prominent members in Congress - including Sen. Previously: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture approaches period of maximum dynamic pressure He noted there was “strong, bipartisan congressional support for a second lander and for the Artemis Program in general.” Artemis is NASA’s program aimed at getting astronauts on the moon by 2024, although that deadline’s likely to be extended. “If NASA has different ideas about what would best facilitate getting back to true competition now, we are ready and willing to discuss them,” Bezos wrote. In an indirect reference to his status as the world’s richest individual, Bezos said he was “honored to offer these contributions and am grateful to be in a financial position to do so.” (For what it’s worth, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is currently the world’s second-richest individual.) And it would do the work on a fixed-price basis, shielding NASA from cost overruns. “But it is not too late to remedy.”īezos then offered to waive all payments in the 2021-2023 fiscal years, up to $2 billion, “to get the program back on track right now.” He said that would be in addition to the $1 billion in corporate contributions that was previously pledged.īlue Origin would also develop and launch a pathfinder version of its lunar descent element into low Earth orbit at its own cost, “to further retire development and schedule risks,” Bezos said. “That was a mistake, it was unusual, and it was a missed opportunity,” Bezos wrote. He noted that NASA gave SpaceX a chance to revise its bid to fit NASA’s financial needs, and that Blue Origin wasn’t given a similar opportunity. In his letter to Nelson, Bezos revisits the issues laid out in Blue Origin’s protest and complains that NASA “chose to confer a multi-year, multibillion-dollar head start to SpaceX” in the Human Landing System competition. The GAO is due to rule on those protests by Aug. After SpaceX won the award, Blue Origin’s team and Dynetics, the third competitor for a NASA contract, filed protests with the Government Accountability Office. NASA also gave its highest technical rating to SpaceX’s proposal to use a version of its Starship launch system, which is currently under development.īlue Origin and its industry partners - including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper - bid $6 billion to design and build a competing landing system. That $2.9 billion contract went to SpaceX, in part because NASA said Congress didn’t award enough money for two providers. It appears aimed at addressing one of the factors that led NASA in April to issue only one contract for a landing system capable of carrying astronauts to the moon’s surface by as early as 2024. The offer comes just days after Bezos rode Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket ship to the edge of space and back. In an open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Jeff Bezos says his Blue Origin space venture will waive up to $2 billion in payments as part of a deal to build a second lunar landing system for NASA’s use. The space agency awarded Musk's company the contract in April.An artist’s conception shows the lunar landing system designed by Blue Origin and its partners. "Unlike Apollo, our approach is designed to be sustainable and to grow into permanent, affordable lunar operations," Bezos wrote. As NASA recognized, the National Team’s design offers a “comprehensive approach to aborts and contingencies places a priority on crew safety throughout all mission phases.”īezos said he'd waive all payments for the next two fiscal years "to get the program back on track right now." One of its important benefits is that it prioritizes safety. ![]() "We created a 21st-century lunar landing system inspired by the well-characterized Apollo architecture - an architecture with many benefits. "Our approach is designed to be sustainable for repeated lunar missions and, above all, to keep our astronauts safe," the Amazon founder said. ![]() In an open letter posted to his aerospace company's website, Bezos questioned NASA's decision to give a contract to SpaceX to use its lunar lander, or Human Landing System (HLS). Billionaire Jeff Bezos is offering NASA $2 billion to reverse course and allow his company Blue Origin, not Elon Musk's SpaceX company, to get astronauts back on the moon.
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