Blue Origin preps for moonshot lander mission while New Glenn remains grounded

While the timeline remains uncertain for when Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will be allowed to fly again, Jeff Bezos’ company is pushing forward in getting all the parts in place for its first mission to the moon.

The company posted images of continued testing for the Blue Moon MK1 lander, named Endurance, which is undergoing radio frequency compatibility testing at its Lunar Plant 1 facility on the Space Coast.

The lander returned to Florida last month after successfully completing a battery of tests at Johnson Space Center in Houston as it preps for a flight later this year. The mission, which falls under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, is aiming to stick the uncrewed lander on the moon’s South Pole.

It would also feed into Blue Origin’s plans to build out a crewed version of the Blue Moon lander to be used on future Artemis missions. Both Blue Origin, and SpaceX with its Starship spacecraft, are vying to be the human landing system used on Artemis IV aiming for launch in 2028. That’s the mission that would return humans to the moon’s surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

First up, though, NASA has Artemis III lined up for next year, which will remain close to Earth with a goal of having the Orion spacecraft test out docking with one or both of the two companies’ landers.

While SpaceX could be launching Starship as soon as next week on its next test flight out of Texas, Blue Origin has to wait on the Federal Aviation Administration to sign off on a mishap investigation from the last flight of New Glenn.

That launch last month featured a problem with the rocket’s second stage that did not place its payload into a proper orbit. The FAA grounded New Glenn until Blue Origin completes an investigation into what went wrong.

Despite that upper stage problem, the first stage for the mission, a booster named “Never Tell Me The Odds” was able to make its second successful landing on a recovery vessel in the Atlantic.

It was brought back to Port Canaveral and is now sitting in Blue Origin’s integration facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 36.

It was joined this week by the company’s third New Glenn first-stage booster, which was named “No, It’s Necessary,” a reference to a line in the film “Interstellar.” That booster made an early Monday morning trip from Blue Origin’s rocket manufacturing factory in Merritt Island to LC-36.

It’s now lined up alongside the recovered booster, and could be the one used on the Blue Moon MK1 mission.

“This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them!” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp posted on X, a reference to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

The company’s first New Glenn launch came in January 2024, and while the second stage made it to space, the booster on that mission, named “So You’re Telling Me There’s A Chance” was not able to stick the recovery landing.

The FAA grounded New Glenn for that mission as well, but the company was able to come back and knock out the second New Glenn launch without issue last November.

Limp had stated earlier this year that he hoped Blue Origin could see at least eight missions flown this year, but those goals took a hit after the NG-3 mission mishap.

Blue Origin had been targeting its moonbound lander mission for summer, but that could slip to later in the year depending on when the FAA closes the mishap investigation.

When it does fly, the lander Endurance aims to demonstrate precision landing, cryogenic propulsion, autonomous guidance, navigation and control capabilities as its primary objectives. As part of the CLPS program, though, it will carry two NASA science and technology payloads.

That includes the Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies, or SCALPS, which are high-resolution cameras that look to capture the interaction of the lander with the lunar surface capturing the spread of the plume kicked up by the engine. The other CLPS payload is a static Laser Retroreflective Array, which NASA has stuck on all of its CLPS lander missions. They act as beacons that can be seen from orbiting satellites and help better map out the moon as more make it to the surface.

To date, NASA has helped fund four launched CLPS missions, with three of the four featuring landers that made it to the moon. The first mission, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, suffered issues after launch, so was not able to get to the moon. Intuitive Machines has managed to land on the moon twice, but its lander tipped over on both missions. Only Firefly Aerospace with its Blue Ghost lander has been able to land without issue and perform everything it planned to on its mission.

Blue Origin’s lander could be the next to try for success, although Astrobotic has its larger Griffin lander gearing up for a moon run that could launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy this summer. SpaceX is also the planned ride for the next landers for both Intuitive Machines and Firefly with missions still on NASA’s manifest to fly this year.

Blue Origin’s MK1 lander, though, will directly feed into NASA’s bigger Artemis plans.

With the lander back in Florida and its rocket booster in the garage, Blue Origin is close to getting it out on the pad.

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