After losing to SpaceX, Blue Origin bid again for a new round of NASA lunar lander contract.

CTOnews.com, December 13 (Xinhua) after losing its bid for the Artemis moon landing program to SpaceX last year, Bezos' blue origin has made a comeback, bidding for a new round of bids for lunar landing spacecraft.

SpaceX's starship-based HLS manned lunar lander will be used in the early stages of NASA's return to the moon, but NASA aims to maintain long-term activity on the lunar surface and plans to build a lunar base. As a result, NASA announced a new round of "SLD (Sustainable Lunar Development)" in March, inviting another tender to support the lander needed for long, multiple trips to the moon.

CTOnews.com learned that SpaceX used the $1.15 billion increase in development grants last month to directly develop products under the new program. There are many competitors participating in the tender, including Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Boeing Big three, plus the "National team" (National Team) formed by Astrobotic and Honeybee Robotics, and the new team composed of Nogg and Dynetics.

With the exception of SpaceX, the rest of the team has not yet come up with a reference design, so it is not clear how the design is different from that proposed in the first round of bidding. If all goes well, NASA is expected to announce the winning bidder for SLD in June 2023, but the maiden flight is not expected until after 2030 at the earliest.