10.05.2019
Jeff Bezos may be ready to bring Blue Origin, his secretive space company, out of the shadows.
The billionaire space race
BLUE MOON
Blue Moon is a flexible lander delivering a wide variety of small, medium and large payloads to the lunar surface. Its capability to provide precise and soft landings will enable a sustained human presence on the Moon.
Meet Blue Moon
Blue Moon can deliver payloads to the lunar surface, host payloads and even deploy payloads during its journey to the Moon. Its technology builds on our experience with New Shepard with respect to LH2/LOX propulsion, precision guidance, vertical landing and landing gear systems.
It's been years in development.
Blue Moon can land multiple metric tons of payload on the lunar surface.
The top deck and lower bays easily accommodate a wide variety of payloads, including large payloads and ESPA-class payloads with standard ring port interfaces. There are lower mounting locations for payloads, useful for closer access to the lunar surface and off-loading.
The Blue Moon lander provides kilowatts of power to payloads using its fuel cells, allowing for long mission durations and the ability to last through the lunar night.
Blue Moon's precision guidance and descent sensors utilize machine learning technology to accurately land anywhere on the lunar surface, starting with its first mission.
The Blue Moon lander can deliver large infrastructure payloads with high accuracy to pre-position systems for future missions. The larger variant of Blue Moon has been designed to land an ascent vehicle that will allow us to return Americans to the Moon by 2024.
Quelle: Blue Origin
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Update: 11.05.2019
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Bezos-owned company wants manned moon mission in 2024
Jeff Bezos
JEFFREY (JEFF) PRESTON BEZOSHillicon Valley: Facebook co-founder calls for breaking up company | Facebook pushes back | Experts study 2020 candidates to offset 'deepfake' threat | FCC votes to block China Mobile | Groups, lawmakers accuse Amazon of violating children's privacyBezos-owned company wants manned moon mission in 2024Groups accuse Amazon of violating children's privacyMORE, the Amazon CEO who also owns the aerospace company Blue Origin, announced his space company's plans Thursday for a manned mission to the moon.
"This vehicle is going to the moon," Bezos said while revealing the plan, according to USA Today. He added that he hopes the lunar lander, called Blue Moon, will head towards the celestial body in 2024.
Bezos said that going to the moon is a good idea because it has a weaker gravitational pull than Earth.
"We were given a gift – this nearby body called the moon," he said.
"It’s time to go back to the moon, and this time to stay," Bezos added.
Bezos stood before a mock-up of the craft at the presentation.
He also confirmed that the company will fly people to space this year in the "New Shephard," a reusable suborbital rocket system. The company is also working on a future rocket, the "New Glenn," capable of carrying people and payloads by 2021.
Bezos, also the founder of Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post, described the lander and rockets as just the first steps toward larger space missions.
He floated the idea of space colonies, showing images of spacecraft people could live in. He said that the weather in such colonies, which would float or orbit in space, could be like that of Maui.
The commercial space industry has grown in recent years. In addition to Bezos's Blue Origin, other billionaires have also jumped into the field, including Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic, Virgin Orbit, and The Spaceship Company, companies that are developing commercial spacecraft and satellites. Branson has said that Virgin Group has invested over $1 billion in the three smaller companies.
Another rival is Elon Musk and his company SpaceX, which is developing reusable rockets to place satellites in orbit and more ambitious plans for transport to Mars.
Quelle: The Hill