An explosive report from Ars Technica’s Eric Berger has revealed how Blue Origin plans to land SpaceX on a crewed moon. Internal documents obtained by Ars reportedly detail the accelerated mission architecture that Blue Origin will use to attempt to land astronauts on the Moon without the highly complex orbital refueling approach SpaceX has taken.
Gizmodo could not independently verify the content of the documents reviewed by Ars, and Blue Origin did not respond to a request for comment.
rivalry increases
Before we dive into Blue Origin’s new lunar strategy, let’s get a little context. On Sunday, Musk shocked the spaceflight community by announcing that SpaceX—a company built on its founder’s dream of colonizing Mars—has moved toward building a city on the Moon instead.
The move marks a major shift in the company’s strategic vision. After all, it was only a year ago that Musk called the Moon a “distraction” and insisted that SpaceX was “going straight to Mars.” Still, this isn’t entirely surprising, as Musk’s company is currently in danger of losing its Artemis 3 lunar lander contract to Blue Origin.
The morning after Musk announced SpaceX’s moon spin, Bezos posted an ominous photo of a turtle peeking out of the shadows (it’s relevant – promise). As Berger pointed out, the image – without text – almost certainly points to Blue Origin’s mascot: a turtle. Bezos has previously stated that the tortoise is a reference to one of Aesop’s fables, “The Tortoise and the Hare”.
It appears that in their eyes, Blue is the tortoise that will beat the SpaceX-rabbit to landing on the Moon through slow and steady development.
NASA’s Artemis 3 mission will be the first mission to return humans to the Moon since the Apollo era. In 2021, the agency contracted SpaceX to build a crew lander for the mission, called the Starship Human Landing System (HLS). NASA originally hoped the lander would be ready in time for Artemis 3 launch by 2024, but significant developmental delays pushed the mission back to 2028 and prompted the agency to reopen the contract in October.
Since then, Blue has emerged as a competitor to SpaceX for the Artemis 3 lander contract. Bezos’ company is actively preparing its Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) cargo lander for its first test flight, scheduled for launch this year. Its success will pave the way for the Mk2 Crew Lander, and if that vehicle is ready to fly before Starship HLS, Musk could say goodbye to his Artemis 3 contract.
Blue Origin’s new plan
Here’s how Blue Origin plans to take it forward. Documents reviewed by Ars reportedly detail two missions: an unmanned demo mission and a crewed demo landing.
Berger reports that uncrewed flight would require three launches of Blue’s New Glenn rocket. The first two would place two “transfer stages” (special upper stages designed to move a vehicle from one orbit to another) into low-Earth orbit, and the third would place a smaller version of the Mk2 lander, called “Blue Moon Mk2-IL”, into orbit. These three vehicles will connect to each other and the first transfer stage will place them in an elliptical orbit around the Earth.
The first stage will then separate and fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere. Only then will the second transfer stage begin, which will place the MK2-IL lander into an elliptical orbit around the Moon. The lander will then separate, land on the lunar surface, and climb back into low-lunar orbit.
Crewed landings would require four new Glenn launches, three with three transfer stages to LEO and the fourth to launch the MK2-IL and a docking port. All four vehicles will reach the port. The first transfer stage will boost the stack into elliptical Earth orbit, and the second will propel it into a special, highly stable orbit around the moon – to rendezvous with NASA’s Orion spacecraft carrying a crew of astronauts.
The Orion will dock with the MK2-IL to allow crew boarding. The third transfer stage will take the Mk2-IL into low-lunar orbit and separate, allowing the lander to land on the lunar surface and then ascend to rendezvous with Orion.
Sounds easy enough, right? Not enough. Although this approach would not require orbital refueling, Blue Origin would still have to prove that it could accomplish complex docking and deep space maneuvers, as Berger has never attempted before. So while Blue Origin is aiming for an uncrewed moon landing later this year — possibly ahead of SpaceX’s 2027 goal — both companies are far from the finish line.
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