Sci-Tech
5 years ago

Amazon’s founder unveils Moon lander concept

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Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos has unveiled a mock-up of a new lunar lander spacecraft that aims to take equipment and humans to the Moon by 2024.

The unmanned, reusable Blue Moon vehicle will carry scientific instruments, satellites and rovers.

It will feature a new rocket engine called BE-7 that can blast 10,000lb (4,535kg) of thrust.

"It's time to go back to the Moon, this time to stay," said Mr Bezos.

Mr Bezos presented the Moon goals of his space exploration company Blue Origin at the Washington Convention Center in Washington DC, to an audience consisting of potential customers and officials from Nasa.

The Blue Moon lunar lander comes loaded with enough fuel to get from Earth to the Moon.

It can deliver payloads to the lunar surface, deploy up to four self-driving rovers, and launch satellites to orbit the Moon.

Blue Moon will weigh 33,000lb when loaded with fuel on lift-off from Earth, which will decrease to about 7,000lb when it is about to land on the Moon.

Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos has unveiled a mock-up of a new lunar lander spacecraft that aims to take equipment and humans to the Moon by 2024.

The unmanned, reusable Blue Moon vehicle will carry scientific instruments, satellites and rovers.

It will feature a new rocket engine called BE-7 that can blast 10,000lb (4,535kg) of thrust.

"It's time to go back to the Moon, this time to stay," said Mr Bezos.

Mr Bezos presented the Moon goals of his space exploration company Blue Origin at the Washington Convention Center in Washington DC, to an audience consisting of potential customers and officials from Nasa.

The Blue Moon lunar lander comes loaded with enough fuel to get from Earth to the Moon.

It can deliver payloads to the lunar surface, deploy up to four self-driving rovers, and launch satellites to orbit the Moon.

Blue Moon will weigh 33,000lb when loaded with fuel on lift-off from Earth, which will decrease to about 7,000lb when it is about to land on the Moon.

In his speech, Mr Bezos said that Blue Origin would be able to meet Trump's deadline, but "only because" the firm had begun designing the lunar lander in 2016. 

Mr Bezos wanted to improve access to the Moon, because he has a wider vision of a future where people are able to live and work in space, which is not possible today.

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