NASA announced that this lander, Endurance, has completed vacuum testing on Earth, a key step toward a planned launch later this year.
By Adam Kovac edited by Claire Cameron
NASA/Blue Origin
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Blue Origin’s Endurance lunar lander may be living up to its name: NASA revealed Monday that the spacecraft has completed a battery of tests inside the space agency’s vacuum simulation chamber. These checks are crucial if Jeff Bezos’ private space company wants to test launch the lander later this year, as it hopes to do.
Endurance, also known as Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1), is a single-use, uncrewed cargo lander that will operate as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, in which the space agency is working with private companies to develop new cargo delivery systems for use in the agency’s planned Artemis lunar missions. The MK1 is designed to deliver up to three tons of supplies and equipment to the lunar surface, a critical capability as NASA seeks to establish a permanently staffed lunar base.
During testing at the Johnson Space Center, Endurance was subjected to space-like conditions, including extreme temperatures and the stresses of a vacuum. Data from those tests will now be analyzed and used to improve the design of the MK1, as well as that of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 (MK 2) spacecraft, a larger, crewed landing system that Bezos’ company hopes will be used to transport astronauts from a ship in lunar orbit to the moon’s surface and back. MK 2 should participate in the 2027 editions Artemis III assignmenta test in which it and a lunar lander variant of SpaceX’s spacecraft will attempt to meet and dock with a crewed Orion capsule.
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Which spacecraft will ultimately be used in the agency’s missions Artemis IV The mission to send astronauts to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than half a century remains to be seen. SpaceX’s Starship is also still in development; the spacecraft exploded several times during test flights, although its the last demonstration was a success. Another demonstration flight is planned for the end of the month.
Endurance must now prove that it can survive the pressure of launching and flying through space. This is expected to happen later this year as part of Blue Origin’s Pathfinder 1 mission, where the lunar lander will launch aboard one of the company’s New Glenn rockets. The lander’s engine, cryogenic propellant fluid and propulsion systems, avionics and other systems will be put to the test.
NASA also hopes to use the lander for its next CT-3 Sciences mission, which will carry two scientific payloads to the Moon’s south pole. These instruments will be used to capture photos of a lunar descent to inform future missions to the surface and to study the types of materials ejected from the surface as the lander falls.
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