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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Wins Contract to Take NASA Rover to the Moon
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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Wins Contract to Take NASA Rover to the Moon

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NASA’s VIPER lunar rover could be delivered to the moon by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company. The US space agency has awarded the company a task order to design a delivery plan for the rover, with a future delivery option.

The award, worth $190 million, was issued through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which the agency is using to buy delivery services to the moon from private companies. The award does not directly imply a delivery agreement; first, NASA will verify whether Blue Origin is capable of successfully sending the expensive VIPER rover to the moon’s south pole. To be eligible to take on the VIPER delivery, the company must place its Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander—complete with a NASA technology payload—on the lunar surface by the end of 2025.

Blue Origin won this contract to send cargo to the moon in 2023, and designed the Blue Moon MK1 in order to fulfil it. On this mission, it will carry NASA stereo cameras that will conduct surface surveys, in addition to small spheres equipped with laser technology for mission tracking.

“There is an option on the contract to deliver and safely deploy the rover to the Moon’s surface. NASA will make the decision to exercise that option after the execution and review of the base task and of Blue Origin’s first flight of the Blue Moon MK1 lander,” the agency said in a statement.

On the same day as NASA announced the award, Blue Origin wrote on X: “Our second Blue Moon MK1 lander is already in production and well-suited to support the VIPER rover. Building on the learnings from our first MK1 lander, this mission is important for future lunar permanence and will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the Moon.”

VIPER—which stands for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover—has been designed by NASA scientists to explore the moon’s south pole for ice and other resources of interest. It is about 2.5 meters tall, weighs nearly 500 kilograms, and has a one-meter drill and three scientific instruments. The vehicle had been scheduled to launch in 2023, only for that date to be pushed back. Then, in the face of rising costs and further delays, in July 2024 NASA said it had cancelled the mission. The CLPS award to Blue Origin now appears to have revived the program.

The arrival of private space companies has the potential to reduce the traditional costs of space exploration while allowing mission managers to focus on scientific issues. Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, and SpaceX are just some of the companies that have emerged in this sector and won CLPS contracts with NASA.

“NASA is leading the world in exploring more of the Moon than ever before, and this delivery is just one of many ways we’re leveraging US industry to support a long-term American presence on the lunar surface,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy in a statement. “Our rover will explore the extreme environment of the lunar South Pole, traveling to small, permanently shadowed regions to help inform future landing sites for our astronauts and better understand the Moon’s environment—important insights for sustaining humans over longer missions, as America leads our future in space.”

This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.



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SpaceX's Starship Lunar Lander Could Be ‘Years Late,’ NASA Safety Panel Warns
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SpaceX’s Starship Lunar Lander Could Be ‘Years Late,’ NASA Safety Panel Warns

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NASA aims to return astronauts to the Moon by mid-2027—a feat that would fulfill a decade of preparation. The agency may have to extend that timeline even further, however, as slow progress on SpaceX’s lunar lander threatens to delay the Artemis 3 mission.

During a public meeting on Friday, members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel warned that the Human Landing System (HLS) version of Starship could be “years late,” SpaceNews reports. The panel reached that conclusion following a visit last month to SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas.

“The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 Moon landing,” said panelist Paul Hill, former director of Mission Operations at NASA.

Another Artemis delay—so what?

Putting American boots back on the Moon is a top priority for NASA. With a new space race underway, global powers including the U.S., China, and Russia are vying for a first-mover advantage.

Whoever reaches the lunar surface first will be able to set certain ground rules about who can do what and where. This would not only reinforce that country’s influence on the Moon and in space but also give it strategic leverage as military operations increasingly depend on space-based assets.

“This is a pivotal moment for our nation’s space program,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during a hearing on legislative priorities for NASA earlier this month. He went on to emphasize that space has become a “strategic frontier with direct consequences for national security, economic growth, and technological leadership.”

How did we get here?

In 2021, NASA contracted Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a version of Starship capable of landing astronauts on the Moon. At that time, the agency aimed to accomplish a landing by 2024, but that target date has been pushed back in recent years.

Development of Starship HLS has slowed significantly as SpaceX has struggled with repeated explosive failures this year. While Starship’s most recent test flight on August 26 was a success, unmet technical milestones have piled up.

One major issue is demonstrating the cryogenic propellant transfer needed to refuel Starship in low-Earth orbit before the rocket heads to the Moon, Hill said during the Friday meeting. Developmental delays for Starship 3—the first iteration capable of in-orbit fuel transfers—have slowed progress toward this goal.

Hill also pointed to potentially competing priorities for SpaceX between Starlink and Starship HLS, SpacePolicyOnline.com reports. Starship 3 will be integral in launching the third generation of Starlink satellites while simultaneously creating the on-orbit fuel depots and lunar lander for Artemis 3.

“The next six months of Starship launches will be telling about the likelihood of HLS flying crew in 2027 or by the end of the decade,” Hill said.

Despite these concerns, the panelists emphasized that SpaceX is still the only launch provider for the job. “There is no competitor, whether government or industry, that has this full combination of factors that yield this high a manufacturing and flight tempo, with their direct effects on reliability increases and cost reduction,” Hill said.

The downside to relying on SpaceX, however, is clear: Without a launch-ready Starship HLS by 2027, Artemis 3 won’t get off the ground on time.

Back in 2023, NASA selected Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to provide a second lunar lander, dubbed Blue Ghost, to be used during the Artemis 5 mission later this decade. The contract is worth $3.4 billion and includes a development team consisting of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics.



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NASA resurrects its VIPER moon rover for a 2027 mission with Blue Origin

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NASA is apparently giving its ice-scouting moon rover mission another try. The space agency has announced that the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) project — which was called off last year after a series of delays and mounting costs — could catch a ride to the moon with Blue Origin in 2027 under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Blue Origin must first plan and demonstrate how the delivery at the lunar surface would work, and if it’s all to NASA’s liking, VIPER will be ferried by the company’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander.

Blue Origin hasn’t yet attempted a moon landing, but the first opportunity for its Blue Moon Mark 1 lander is expected to launch later this year as part of another CLPS delivery. That mission will also help to inform NASA’s decision about VIPER’s rideshare, which would use a second Mark 1 lander that the agency says is already in production. If VIPER does eventually make it to the moon, it’ll be deployed in the extreme environment of the lunar South Pole to search for water ice and other resources that could support future missions. 

“This delivery could show us where ice is most likely to be found and easiest to access, as a future resource for humans,” said Joel Kearns, Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a statement. “And by studying these sources of lunar water, we also gain valuable insight into the distribution and origin of volatiles across the solar system, helping us better understand the processes that have shaped our space environment and how our inner solar system has evolved.”



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NASA to Make Major Announcement About Martian Rock Sample on Wednesday. Here's How to Watch
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NASA to Make Major Announcement About Martian Rock Sample on Wednesday. Here’s How to Watch

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In July 2024, NASA’s Perseverance rover extracted a rock core from the edge of Neretva Vallis, a river valley cut into the Martian surface by water rushing into the Jezero Crater billions of years ago. This mysterious rock caught the attention of scientists on Earth, as its features may reveal clues about possible ancient life on the Red Planet.

At 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday, September 10, NASA will host a press conference to discuss the analysis of the sample, dubbed “Sapphire Canyon,” and the subject of a forthcoming study. Participants include Sean Duffy, acting NASA administrator; Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate; Lindsay Hays, senior scientist for Mars Exploration; Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance project scientist; and Joel Hurowitz, a planetary scientist at Stony Brook University.

NASA will livestream the event on its YouTube channel, and you can watch it right here at the stream provided below. You can also watch the livestream through the NASA app, available for both iOS and Android.

What is “Sapphire Canyon”?

NASA believes the ancient lake delta in Jezero Crater is the best place for Perseverance to hunt for signs of past microbial life. Since arriving in this 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) impact crater in February 2021, the rover has gathered 30 samples of rock and regolith for a potential return to Earth.

The Sapphire Canyon sample was the 25th collected by Perseverance. The arrowhead-shaped specimen, extracted from a vein-filled rock named “Cheyava Falls,” features a striking pattern. Tiny black spots that NASA scientists call “poppy seeds” are interspersed among larger “leopard” spots, potentially indicating past chemical reactions that could have provided an energy source for microbes.

Perseverance captured this image of a rock called Cheyava Falls on July 18, 2024. © Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, Labels: Gizmodo

Perseverance also took multiple scans of Cheyava Falls with its SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instrument. This indicated that the rock contains organic compounds—the building blocks of life. While it’s possible that these compounds formed through non-biological processes, their presence alongside Cheyava’s spots suggests this rock contains a potential biosignature.

What to expect from tomorrow’s event

NASA has not revealed any details about the forthcoming study’s findings, but the fact that the agency is holding a press conference to announce them suggests they’re a big deal.

Perseverance is equipped with a suite of instruments capable of detailed chemical, mineralogical, and imaging analysis. It’s possible that analyzing the rover’s data on Cheyava Falls and the Sapphire Canyon sample revealed more evidence for potential biosignatures. It’s also possible that the analysis pointed to alternative, geological explanations for the rock’s strange features.

Whatever NASA reveals at the press conference will be just the tip of the iceberg compared with what Sapphire Canyon could teach us if it returns to Earth. Researchers are already investigating the best ways to study Sapphire Canyon once they can get their hands on it.

NASA has partnered with the European Space Agency to plan a multi-mission campaign to retrieve Perseverance’s samples, but progress has stalled due to escalating costs and complexity. President Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal threatened to kill the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, but Congress moved to reinstate its funding in July.

With the future of MSR uncertain, it’s encouraging that NASA scientists still have exciting new findings to share about Perseverance’s samples, even from 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) away. As the search for ancient life on Mars continues, tomorrow’s event is one you won’t want to miss.



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The Destruction of NASA Would Be a Blow to Our Collective Imagination
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The Destruction of NASA Would Be a Blow to Our Collective Imagination

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“It’s just very sad, and it’s kind of pointless,” Rader says. “And I think they’re going to look back at it in a couple of years, maybe less, and go, ‘Oh my gosh, what did we do?’”

No one I spoke to for this piece thinks NASA is literally going away. For one thing, Congress is pushing back on the changes, though the administration seems determined to ram them through one way or another. Instead, what they imagine is a kind of rump agency. “The sense that I got was, it was a very real possibility that NASA could be reduced to something just kind of in name only,” Rader says. “Almost maybe a version of the FAA (the Federal Aviation Administration), but for space.”

“It’s like witnessing a death of an ideal.”

Casey Dreier, space policy chief at the Planetary Society

What’s being undercut isn’t just NASA’s technical ability to carry out missions, although that would be bad enough. It is America’s—and the world’s—capacity to wonder, to believe, to know. “It’s almost like a diminution of our own vision and ambition to say we’re literally, I mean, again, not figuratively, literally, closing our eyes to the cosmos and turning inwards,” says Casey Dreier, the space policy chief at the nonprofit Planetary Society. “It’s like witnessing a death of an ideal.”

That death is already underway. Around 4,000 NASA staffers are scheduled to leave the agency this year, either through what the Trump administration calls “deferred resignation”—a kind of delayed, voluntary layoff—or what NASA is branding “normal attrition,” which includes people like Rader who are leaving of their own accord. That represents about a quarter of the agency’s total staff and includes more than 2,000 senior leaders, according to a report in Politico.

(In a statement, Cheryl Warner, NASA’s news chief, said safety “remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more streamlined and more efficient organization and work to ensure we remain fully capable of pursuing a Golden Era of exploration and innovation, including to the moon and Mars.”)

The administration, meanwhile, has proposed a 2026 NASA budget that would slash overall agency spending by 24 percent and science spending specifically by almost half. “This is the largest single-year cut as a percentage ever proposed to NASA,” Dreier says. “It would bring NASA’s overall resources, adjusted for inflation, down to a level not seen since before the first humans went into space in 1961.”

The Trump proposal projects a frozen NASA budget until at least 2030 even as the administration touts a new “golden age of innovation and exploration.” To cap it off, NASA has been without a full-time administrator—the agency’s top official—since January. Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary and a former champion lumberjack and Real World cast member, has been doing double duty in the role on an interim basis since July.

Much has been written about what the proposed budget cuts and job losses will do to NASA. To begin with, they would mean the end of 41 planned or current missions, according to the Planetary Society. Those include an audacious, and long-underway plan to gather pristine soil samples on Mars and return them to earth, a probe exploring the solar system beyond Pluto, and a lander set to catch and study a giant asteroid that will barely miss the earth in 2029. They would also force NASA to essentially get out of the business of tracking climate change.



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