May 10, 2019 11:20:00

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveils design of new lunar lander ``Blue Moon''

Aerospace startup '

Blue Origin ', founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has finally released the design and image movie of the lunar lander ' Blue Moon '.

Blue Origin | Blue Moon
https://www.blueorigin.com/blue-moon

Jeff Bezos unveils mock-up of Blue Origin's lunar lander Blue Moon - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/9/18550258/blue-origin-moon-lunar-lander-jeff-bezos-space

At the Convention Center in Washington, DC , Mr. Bezos announced the design of the Blue Moon lunar lander, which Blue Origin has been working on for the past three years. Blue Moon can be launched in combination with Blue Origin's vertical landing rocket ' New Glenn ' announced in 2017, and Blue Moon itself will be equipped with its own engine ' BE-7 '.

You can understand what kind of lunar lander Blue Moon actually is by looking at the image movie below.

Introducing Blue Moon


Blue Moon flies over the moon.

Blue Moon, which is also equipped with an engine, is capable of autonomously navigating space, and is capable of soft landing on the moon while carrying

a payload of 3.6 to 6.5 tons.

It seems possible to eject cargo from the main body while floating in space.

The BE-7 engine is mounted in the direction of Blue Moon's travel, and its four legs extend in the same direction as the engine.

Blue Moon approaches the moon surface while controlling its attitude with its engine...

It is now vertical with its legs facing down.

Blue Moon slowly landed on the lunar surface while remaining vertical. Blue Moon's precision guidance and descent sensors use machine learning to accurately land anywhere on the moon.

The arm extends from the top of the landed Blue Moon ......

A small lunar probe has been lowered.

According to Bezos, Blue Moon can carry up to four lunar probes at the same time. It seems that it is not a mechanism for humans to ride at the moment, but it seems that it will be possible for humans to board by creating a larger version of Blue Moon.

'The very fundamental, long-term problem is that humans will eventually run out of energy on Earth,' Bezos said in an event announcement, adding that the solution is to harness the power of the solar system elsewhere than on Earth. I think it's about getting the source.

The likely landing site for Blue Moon is

Shackleton , a crater near the moon's south pole. There are areas inside Shackleton that are not exposed to sunlight, and it is thought that there is a high possibility that ice, a valuable space resource, exists. By mining ice and extracting water, it is possible to obtain rocket fuel and drinking water, so it can be a very useful resource for human activities on the moon.

``The most important thing we know about the moon is that there is water there,'' Bezos said, adding that the liquid hydrogen that fuels the BE-7 engine onboard Blue Moon will be It may also be possible to produce ice from surface ice.