Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin’s early Blue Moon prototype, Mark 1, has completed a major survival test at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, clearing a key milestone before an uncrewed lunar test flight meant to reduce risk for future Artemis astronaut landings.
Blue Moon Clears Key Survival Test
NASA said Monday that the Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, also called Endurance, completed environmental testing inside Thermal Vacuum Chamber A at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The facility, built in 1963 for the Apollo program, can simulate the vacuum and temperature extremes of space.
The space agency said the testing allowed engineers to evaluate system performance and verify the lander’s structural and thermal integrity before launch. By recreating the freezing, airless conditions of space on Earth, engineers tested whether Endurance can survive the trip to the moon and operate once it reaches the lunar environment.
Endurance Will Test Future Crewed Lander
Endurance will launch to the moon’s South Pole region later this year and carry two NASA payloads under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The mission will test precision landing, cryogenic propulsion and autonomous guidance, navigation and control systems that Blue Origin and NASA plan to use for future lunar operations.
NASA and Blue Origin plan to use lessons from Mark 1 to support the larger Blue Moon Mark 2, a crewed lander intended to carry astronauts between lunar orbit and the moon’s surface under NASA’s Artemis program.
Still, the schedule remains uncertain. NASA’s Artemis 3 page says that the mission will test “one or both” commercial landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin in low Earth orbit, meaning Blue Moon may not necessarily fly on that test.
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Photo courtesy: JennLShoots / Shutterstock.com
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