Blue Origin officials provide update on their lunar lander program
2023 artist rendering of the manned Blue Moon lander
Link here. According to the article, the company is presently stacking its first unmanned version of its Blue Moon lander, dubbed Blue Moon Mark 1, scheduled for launch now next year.
The 8.1-meter-tall cargo lander will help with ongoing development of their crewed lander, named Blue Moon Mk. 2, which is 15.3 meters tall. Both are powered by Blue Origin’s BE-7 engines, which are being tested on stands in Alabama, Texas and Washington.
…“A big milestone for you to look out for online is that Mk. 1 is three modules that are being stacked as we speak: aft, forward and mid. And once it is stacked in its finished configuration, we will be barging it over to NASA Johnson Space Center Chamber A to do a full up thermal vac campaign,” said [Jacqueline Cortese, Blue Origin’s Senior Director of Civil Space]. “So when you see that on its boat, you will know that big things are happening.”
Both versions of the lander are powered by a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. A key difference though is that Mk.1 can be launched to the Moon with a single launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket while Mk. 2 requires orbital refueling. [emphasis mine]
The highlighted sentence above is important because it illustrates the absurdity of the comments last week by interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy, claiming SpaceX’s program to make Starship a manned lunar lander is “behind”, forcing him to open up the competition to Blue Origin, who might get it done sooner.
One of the big issues used against SpaceX is that Starship will need to be refueled once in orbit to work as a lunar lander, and that technology needs to be developed and tested. The problem with this criticism is that, as noted above, Blue Origin’s manned lunar lander also needs to be refueled.
Furthermore, SpaceX has already flown eleven test flights of Starship/Superheavy, and fully expects to do the first refueling tests in orbit next year. Blue Origin meanwhile has only flown its New Glenn rocket once, even after almost two decades of development. Yet, to fly an operational Blue Moon manned mission it will need to fly New Glenn three times, one to put the lander in orbit, another to launch the Lunar Transporter needed to get it to the Moon, and a third to provide the fuel for that mission. Those three launches will have to follow each other in quick session in order to do this mission practically.
New Glenn 18 seconds after its first liftoff
on January 16, 2025.
Moreover, Blue Origin will have to do this twice, since NASA is requiring it to fly an unmanned test mission to the Moon before it will put astronauts on board.
Based on the company’s very slow pattern of operation throughout its history, it is not likely Blue Origin can do this for years. The company hasn’t yet demonstrated any ability to do things at a pace that is reasonable. It took it forever to finally launch New Glenn on its first flight, and it is taking almost a year for it to ramp up for its second flight. And this slow pace has been par for the course throughout New Glenn’s entire development.
Do not expect Blue Origin’s manned lander to be ready for a manned flight before 2030, at the earliest. And I predict with great confidence no matter when Blue Moon reaches the Moon, Starship will have already been there, possibly more than once and very possibly on a private mission completely independent on NASA’s Artemis program.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
2023 artist rendering of the manned Blue Moon lander
Link here. According to the article, the company is presently stacking its first unmanned version of its Blue Moon lander, dubbed Blue Moon Mark 1, scheduled for launch now next year.
The 8.1-meter-tall cargo lander will help with ongoing development of their crewed lander, named Blue Moon Mk. 2, which is 15.3 meters tall. Both are powered by Blue Origin’s BE-7 engines, which are being tested on stands in Alabama, Texas and Washington.
…“A big milestone for you to look out for online is that Mk. 1 is three modules that are being stacked as we speak: aft, forward and mid. And once it is stacked in its finished configuration, we will be barging it over to NASA Johnson Space Center Chamber A to do a full up thermal vac campaign,” said [Jacqueline Cortese, Blue Origin’s Senior Director of Civil Space]. “So when you see that on its boat, you will know that big things are happening.”
Both versions of the lander are powered by a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. A key difference though is that Mk.1 can be launched to the Moon with a single launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket while Mk. 2 requires orbital refueling. [emphasis mine]
The highlighted sentence above is important because it illustrates the absurdity of the comments last week by interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy, claiming SpaceX’s program to make Starship a manned lunar lander is “behind”, forcing him to open up the competition to Blue Origin, who might get it done sooner.
One of the big issues used against SpaceX is that Starship will need to be refueled once in orbit to work as a lunar lander, and that technology needs to be developed and tested. The problem with this criticism is that, as noted above, Blue Origin’s manned lunar lander also needs to be refueled.
Furthermore, SpaceX has already flown eleven test flights of Starship/Superheavy, and fully expects to do the first refueling tests in orbit next year. Blue Origin meanwhile has only flown its New Glenn rocket once, even after almost two decades of development. Yet, to fly an operational Blue Moon manned mission it will need to fly New Glenn three times, one to put the lander in orbit, another to launch the Lunar Transporter needed to get it to the Moon, and a third to provide the fuel for that mission. Those three launches will have to follow each other in quick session in order to do this mission practically.
New Glenn 18 seconds after its first liftoff
on January 16, 2025.
Moreover, Blue Origin will have to do this twice, since NASA is requiring it to fly an unmanned test mission to the Moon before it will put astronauts on board.
Based on the company’s very slow pattern of operation throughout its history, it is not likely Blue Origin can do this for years. The company hasn’t yet demonstrated any ability to do things at a pace that is reasonable. It took it forever to finally launch New Glenn on its first flight, and it is taking almost a year for it to ramp up for its second flight. And this slow pace has been par for the course throughout New Glenn’s entire development.
Do not expect Blue Origin’s manned lander to be ready for a manned flight before 2030, at the earliest. And I predict with great confidence no matter when Blue Moon reaches the Moon, Starship will have already been there, possibly more than once and very possibly on a private mission completely independent on NASA’s Artemis program.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I wonder which is cheaper, running the NASA fully manned thermal vacuum chamber, or using Falcoln 9 to put your device into LEO with the sun giving free heating every 90 minutes?
GeorgeC: There is another factor that might be driving this deal. The vacuum above 60 miles is far better than any vacuum that can be created on Earth.
Blue has zero chance of having Blue Moon Mk. 2 ready – and tested – by Artemis 3’s now-seemingly most likely departure sometime in 2028 or 2029. That leaves only some potential MacGyvered version of the much less capable Mk. 1 as a possible solution.
And the Mk. 1 seems to be quite a bit less capable. Even allowing for the complete lack of any crew hab in the current design, nothing I have been able to find about the Mk. 1 indicates that it has any capability to leave the lunar surface and get back to lunar orbit – particularly the quite demanding NRHO. It seems to be designed as strictly a one-way freight hauler.
With a notional 3-tonne maximum payload, the question then becomes can Blue come up with some kind of crew module capable of launching even a single crew member from the lunar surface to NRHO within a mass budget of 3 tonnes? I am, to say the least, dubious this can be done, from scratch, by Blue in time for a 2028, or even a 2029, Earth departure.
Increasing the size and propellant load of the Mk. 1 to allow it, in its entirety – plus a crew hab payload – to get from the lunar surface back to NRHO would increase the total system mass to a point where a single New Glenn launch might not be adequate to get it to NRHO in the first place. That is because the notional enlarged Mk. 1 would have to be launched with all needed propellant already aboard. The larger Mk. 2 is supposed to be launched dry and prop-loaded in LEO by a separately-launched propellant bowser. Unless this tech can also be ready for use by an upsized Mk. 1 in 2028-9, I don’t see how any of this can possibly work to the most likely required schedule.
There is also the matter of Blue needing to suffer no significant setbacks in the quest for a cobbled-together crew lander over the next three or four years. Right now, for example, even the early 2026 planned launch and lunar landing-only test of the as-currently-designed Mk. 1 lander is dependent upon Blue successfully catching and reusing the New Glenn booster slated to launch the Escapade Mars mission next month. If that booster is lost or returns in poor enough shape to require lengthy refurb, the notional schedule for delivery of a manned upgrade of the Mk. 1 lander lurches sharply rightward as the production cadence for New Glenn boosters is still glacial.
I don’t, frankly, have any confidence that Blue could power through even a single significant setback to such a schedule. SpaceX suffered four consecutive significant Starship failures over a six-month period and still got in two successful launches in the back half of this year and might yet manage a third. But that’s SpaceX. Is Blue that light on its feet? Even half that light? I don’t think so.
And Elon will be busily cheese-paring his own HLS schedule to whatever degree proves possible as Blue scrambles. I wouldn’t care to be Dave Limp at this point.
Suspect Duffy is merely engaging in a clumsy attempt to put pressure on SpaceX.