Cargo Accommodation System for Blue Origin Lander Coming from Astrobotic

As part of the Blue Origin National Team working on a lunar Human Landing System, Astrobotic has won a contract from NASA to develop the Cargo Accommodation System for the project.

"This is truly a powerhouse group dedicated to America’s vision of bringing humans back to the Moon."

John Thornton, Astrobotic.

Cargo Accommodation System designed for Large Items

The cargo accommodation system, in concert with Blue Origin’s lander, allows for safe landing and operation of very large mission critical cargo like astronaut habitats or pressurized rovers. Astrobotic will also support the development of lunar landing sensors.

“Astrobotic is thrilled to continue leveraging our 16 years of lunar-centric capabilities with Blue Origin’s National Team. This is truly a powerhouse group dedicated to America’s vision of bringing humans back to the Moon. Our goal of making space accessible to the world started with robotic lunar missions across our four lander and rover missions, and now extends to astronauts. Astrobotic is ready to do its part to further human presence on the lunar surface,” says John Thornton, Astrobotic CEO.

The team awarded the contract to develop a sustainable human landing system for the Artemis V Moon mission is led by Blue Origin and includes Astrobotic, Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, and Blue Origin’s Honeybee Robotics subsidiary. Under Artemis, NASA's human landing system will take astronauts to and from Gateway in lunar orbit to the surface and back to the lunar space station as part of NASA’s return to the Moon for science, exploration, and inspiration.

Blue Origin will design, develop, test, and verify its Blue Moon lander to meet NASA’s human landing system requirements for recurring astronaut expeditions to the lunar surface, including docking with Gateway, a space station where crew transfer in lunar orbit. In addition to design and development work, the contract includes one uncrewed demonstration mission to the lunar surface before a crewed demo on the Artemis V mission in 2029. The total award value of the firm-fixed price contract is $3.4 billion.

(Source: Astrobotic news release. Additional information from Blue Origin. Images from file)