Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Building Hardware For NASA Artemis To Return To Moon: 'This Time To Stay'

Billionaire Jeff Bezos‘ aerospace company Blue Origin said on Wednesday that it is building hardware to return to the Moon and stay.

What Happened: Blue Origin posted a picture of Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)  and NASA administrator Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) at its factory with two others and said, “It was an honor to host Senator Cantwell and Sen BillNelson today and show them the breadth and volume of hardware we're building that will help us return to the Moon — this time to stay. #Artemis”

Artemis missions are NASA's attempt to extend human existence to the Moon. The first Artemis mission, formerly Exploration Mission-1, was an unmanned moon-orbiting mission.

Artemis II is scheduled for November 2024 and is the second of the two test flights planned before the U.S.'s return to the lunar surface. The four chosen astronauts will fly around the moon aboard the Orion Spacecraft and will be the first humans to venture farthest from the Earth's low earth orbit since NASA's Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

The United States is expecting to send astronauts to the surface of the moon for the second time by 2025-end with the Artemis III mission.

Why It Matters: In May, NASA selected Blue Origin to develop a human landing system for the Artemis V mission scheduled for 2029. The mission is expected to be the third crewed lunar landing under the Artemis program.

The human lander that will carry the first NASA astronauts to Moon under Artemis, however, will be developed by Elon Musk‘s SpaceX. NASA awarded the contract valued at $2.89 billion to SpaceX in April 2021.

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