NASA awards Blue Origin $3.4 billion Artemis moon lander contract

Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has won a $3.4 billion NASA contract to build an Artemis lunar lander that will provide a downstream alternative to the Starship variant already being developed by SpaceX, the agency announced Friday.

“We are going to the Moon! Honored to be on this journey with @nasa to land astronauts on the Moon – this time to stay,” Bezos said in an Instagram post.

John Couluris, Blue Origin vice president for lunar transportation, said the company expects to chip in “well north” of the contract value to fully develop its “Blue Moon” lander, pushing the total cost of the project to around $7 billion. The first piloted landing, part of the fifth Artemis mission, is expected in the 2029 timeframe.