If we can open up the moon, Couluris said, it will become “our eventual hub for the rest of the solar system.”
The pace of Blue Origin work on lunar hardware is palpable.
Couluris said Blue Origin is moving forward on becoming “hardware rich,” with the firm’s target to get the production line moving — to support reliable access to the moon in a low-cost manner.
Serial number one of the Mark 1 lunar lander, for example, is scheduled to fly to the moon’s south pole for the first time this year.
If successful, Mark 1 would be the largest lander ever to touch down on the moon. Blue Origin is working with NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to outfit that first craft with the space agency’s Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) system, which will gauge the effects of the lander’s engine plume on the dusty, rock-strewn lunar surface.
“We are currently building two of these vehicles,” Couluris said, “to get hardware rich.”
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