Blue Moon

“We have some ideas that we think could accelerate the path to the Moon.”

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station early January 16, 2025. Credit: Blue Origin

Blue Origin stands ready to help NASA achieve its goals with regard to landing humans on the Moon as soon as possible, the company’s chief executive said Saturday in an interview with Ars.

“We just want to help the US get to the Moon,” said Dave Limp, CEO of the space company founded by Jeff Bezos. “If NASA wants to go quicker, we would move heaven and Earth, pun intended, to try to get to the Moon sooner. And I think we have some good ideas.”

Limp spoke on Saturday, about 24 hours ahead of the company’s second launch of the large New Glenn rocket. Carrying the ESCAPADE spacecraft for NASA, the mission has a launch window that opens at 2:45 pm ET (19:45 UTC) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and runs for a little more than two hours.

NASA seeks a faster return

This year it has become increasingly apparent that, should NASA stick to its present plans for the Artemis III lunar landing mission, China is on course to beat the United States back to the Moon with humans. In recognition of this, about three weeks ago, NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy said the space agency was reopening the competition for a human lander.

SpaceX and Blue Origin both have existing contracts for human landers, but the government has asked each providers for an option to accelerate their timeline. NASA currently has a target landing date of 2027, but that is unrealistic using the present approach of SpaceX’s Starship or Blue Origin’s large Mk. 2 lander.

Ars exclusively reported in early October that Blue Origin had begun work on a faster architecture, involving multiple versions of its Mk. 1 cargo lander as well as a modified version of this vehicle tentatively called Mk 1.5. Limp said that after Duffy asked for revised proposals, Blue Origin responded almost immediately.

“We’ve sent our initial summary of that over, and we have a full report of that due here shortly,” he said. “I’m not going to go into the details because I think that’s probably for NASA to talk about, not us, but we have some ideas that we think could accelerate the path to the Moon. And I hope NASA takes a close look.”

NASA has sought a “sustainable” pathway to the Moon that involves fully reusable landers and in-space vehicles. However the rise of China’s program has caused the space agency to look for faster solutions, which require less refueling of vehicles in space. Although cognizant of NASA’s short-term needs, Limp said he believes it is important to stick with the sustainable vision over the long term.

“We have an HLS contract, which is a sustainable contract, and we want to continue that,” he said. “We think the right long-term answer is a sustainable architecture that can get you to the Moon, keep you on the Moon, build settlements on the Moon, and use the Moon as a stepping stone for the rest of the Solar System.”

Seeking to relight the engines

The company’s first launch of the New Glenn rocket took place back in January, when the first and second stages of the rocket performed nearly perfectly in getting a demonstration payload into orbit. With New Glenn, Blue Origin intends to land and reuse its first stages of the rocket. An attempt to land the first stage of New Glenn in January failed after its BE-4 engines to did not light for a boost-back burn.

“We got all the way to relighting the engines, so we reoriented the vehicle, and that worked perfectly fine,” Limp said. “And we got to the point where we restarted the engines, and they just didn’t relight. And so we’ve taken the opportunity to make a bunch of improvements. We’ve done some things around the propellant conditioning. We’ve upgraded the engines start-and-shutdown sequences.”

As a result the company is cautiously optimistic it will successfully land the first stage of booster on Sunday’s launch. However, if it actually succeeds in this, it would be significant achievement both for the company, and the future of reusable space launch.

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.