Jeff Bezos space agency says Blue Origin will take 1st woman to the moon – National

Jeff Bezos’ Space agency Blue Origin The billionaire said on Friday that he would take the first woman to the lunar surface, with NASA reaching the decision to select privately built lunar landers capable of sending astronauts to the moon by 2024.

In a post on Instagram with a video of this week’s engine test at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Bezos posted on Instagram: “It (BE-7) takes to the surface of the moon. .

The BE-7 engine, developed by Blue Origin over the years, extends the test-fire time to 1,245 seconds and powers the company’s national team human landing system, the Lunar Lander.

Blue Origin leads the “national team” as the main contractor assembled in 2019 to help build its Blue Moon lander. The team includes Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp and Draper.

Blue Origin has competed for lucrative government deals in recent years and competes with rival billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Dynamics, owned by Lidos Holdings Inc., to win NASA’s next contract to build the next manned lunar landing system to take humans to the moon. Decade.

1:32Jeff Bezos unveiled the mockup of Mooflander ‘Blue Moon’

In April, NASA awarded a $ 579 million Blue Land origin development contract to the Blue Origin team, as well as two other companies: SpaceX received $ 135 million to develop its starship system and Lidos-owned Dynatics won $ 253 million.

A spokesman for the agency said NASA was ready to select two of the three companies “in early March” by 2021 to continue building their lander prototypes for crew missions to the moon from 2024.

Thin funding for landing systems made available to NASA by Congress, as well as uncertainty over the incoming Biden administration’s views on space exploration, have threatened to delay NASA’s decision to advance lunar lander agreements.