With humans due to return to the moon in as little as two years, astronauts will need to begin getting familiar with the spacecraft that will get them to the surface.
Fortunately, a full-scale replica of one of the two commercial lunar landers under development for NASA’s Artemis program is now available for training purposes. The U.S. space agency announced that a crew cabin prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander has “landed” at the Johnson Space Center in Texas.
The full-size mockup is due to serve as an invaluable training tool as NASA works toward the next crewed mission under its Artemis campaign.
In April, NASA succeeded in sending four astronauts around the moon without landing during the Artemis II mission. Now, the agency is eyeing the next test mission, Artemis III, which will test lunar lander docking capabilities in Earth orbit a year before putting boots on the ground.
Will Blue Origin’s lunar lander – the replica of which is now operational – be the one to take the astronauts down? Here’s the latest.
Blue Origin lunar lander ready for astronaut training
A 15-foot tall replica of the Blue Moon lunar lander’s crew cabin is now available at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, for mission simulations, NASA said in a May press release. The cabin where astronauts would live and work during their time on the moon would be located at the base of the 52-foot-tall lander, which Blue Origin is contracted to develop for NASA.
The replica is even complete with an exterior ladder similar to what the astronauts would use to exit onto the lunar surface.
Both NASA and Blue Origin can access the exterior and interior of the crew cabin for a variety of training purposes, including conducting simulations, according to NASA.
“The training cabin will also be used to provide design feedback to the Blue Origin team as the lander continues to be developed and mission planning evolves,” NASA said in a statement.
Does Jeff Bezos own Blue Origin?
Billionaire Jeff Bezos, best known for founding Amazon, founded the private space technology company Blue Origin in 2000.
Headquartered in Washington state, Blue Origin made a name for itself with its suborbital human spaceflights using its New Shepard spacecraft from West Texas. Those missions, several of which featured celebrities like musician Katy Perry and actor William Shatner, have been paused for at least two years while Blue Origin focuses on its lunar program.
Blue Origin, SpaceX landers could take Artemis astronauts to moon
The development comes as Blue Origin and SpaceX both race to have lunar landers ready for a targeted human surface mission in 2028, now known as Artemis IV. NASA’s revamped lunar program also includes a new mission that involves Artemis III astronauts aboard an Orion capsule meeting and docking in 2027 in Earth orbit with one or both of those landers.
SpaceX, the commercial spaceflight company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, was originally awarded the contract to develop a configuration of its Starship vehicle, known as the Human Landing System, for the first Artemis mission to send astronauts to the surface. Blue Origin, though, is also working on the Mark 2 version of its Blue Moon human lander that would launch without a crew atop the company’s New Glenn rocket.
Both landers are being designed to rendezvous with NASA astronauts aboard an Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit and then ferry them to the surface. After the astronauts conduct a moon walk and a series of scientific experiments, the lander would then transport them back up to Orion, which would make the journey back to Earth, according to NASA.
Why is Blue Origin targeting uncrewed moon landing?
Blue Origin is also preparing to send the uncrewed Mark 1 variant of its Blue Moon lander on a pathfinding mission in 2026 to the moon’s south pole region, where it would permanently remain.
The mission, one of potentially four robotic lunar landings targeted for 2026, comes as NASA plans to dramatically increase the number of uncrewed landers carrying cargo and science instruments to the moon. In 2027, the space agency is eyeing up to 30 more uncrewed landings.
The missions, contracted under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, would all help pave the way for the first astronauts to step foot on the moon for the first time since 1972 under the Artemis campaign. From there, NASA believes what it learns would provide a foundation to send humans to Mars.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com. Subscribe to the free Florida TODAY newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: NASA intros full-size Blue Moon lander replica for Artemis training
Reporting by Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Florida Today
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