Jeff Bezos isn’t just into selling everything to everyone through an online megastore. In the past couple of decades Amazon’s chief executive has invested chunks of his huge fortune in many other endeavors, such as news publishing and space exploration. His spaceflight company, Blue Moon, is testing reusable sub-orbital rockets to “build a road to space”. Now the company has another grand goal: getting to the moon. To do so, it will employ a new lunar lander called “Blue Moon”. Bezos himself unveiled a life-sized mockup of the spacecraft during a pompous press conference held at the Washington Convention Center, in Washington, DC. The Blue Moon lander will navigate autonomously to a soft landing on the lunar surface, where it will be able to deliver a 3.6 to 6.5 tons payload for each trip. The payload could consist of four large moon rovers or an “ascent stage” unit which will bring human passengers back to Earth. The lander employs a new engine, called the BE-7, which will go through first ignition testing this summer.
- Brand:
- Blue Origin
- Year:
- 2019
