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Private space exploration company Blue Origin said its Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander arrived in Houston for testing.<\/p>\n
A lunar lander from the private space exploration company Blue Origin is in Houston for testing at the Johnson Space Center, the company announced on Monday.<\/p>\n
The Blue Moon MK1 Lunar Lander is a single-launch lander that would, if flown, land on the moon much like the lunar modules of the Apollo mission did.<\/p>\n
The lander is being tested in Houston at the Johnson Space Center. Testing will be done at the thermal vacuum Chamber A, a 90-foot-tall chamber designed to create a vacuum and simulate conditions in space.<\/p>\n
Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n At the Johnson Space Center, the lunar lander will be exposed to temperatures ranging from negative 58 degrees Fahrenheit (-50 degrees C) to 86 degrees (30 degrees C). Full mission testing will happen at both those temperatures.<\/p>\n “This will prove that MK1 can maintain thermal equilibrium and perform its mission in space,” Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, said in a post on social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos, is working toward a goal of providing a lunar landing system<\/a> by the Artemis V mission. NASA currently has a contract with SpaceX, the private space exploration company owned by Elon Musk and operating in South Texas, for similar systems in the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions.<\/p>\n Speculation had previously arisen that NASA would give SpaceX the boot, given concerns with the success of the company’s own lunar lander, Starship. Then-acting administrator Sean Duffy indicated he was open to the idea<\/a>, though NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, is closely tied to SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk.<\/p>\n