Blue Moon Pathfinder is a planned robotic lunar landing mission to be operated by
Blue Origin
Blue Origin Enterprises, L.P. is an American space technology company headquartered in Kent, Washington. The company operates the suborbital New Shepard rocket and the heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. In addition to producing engines for its own ...
, set to launch no earlier than early 2026.
As a flight test of a prototype
Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, the mission will demonstrate critical systems, including the
BE-7 engine, cryogenic fluid power and propulsion systems, avionics, continuous downlink communications, and precision landing with an accuracy within . Validating these technologies is essential for supporting future
Human Landing System A Human Landing System (HLS) is a spacecraft in the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Artemis program that is expected to land humans on the Moon. These are being ...
missions under
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
's
Artemis program
The Artemis program is a Exploration of the Moon, Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1. The program's stated long-ter ...
, which will utilize the larger Blue Moon Mark 2 lander.
Blue Origin also plans to offer future Blue Moon Mark 1 missions to commercial, governmental, and institutional customers seeking lunar payload delivery.
The Pathfinder mission is partially funded by NASA's
Commercial Lunar Payload Services
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to hire companies to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon. Most landing sites are near the lunar south pole where they will scout for lunar resources, test in situ resource ...
(CLPS) program, under which Blue Origin was awarded in July 2024 to transport the Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) payload. SCALPSS consists of four cameras designed to capture high-resolution imagery of how the plume from the lander's high-thrust BE-7 engine interacts with the lunar surface during and after descent.
The data gathered will help scientists better understand the effects of rocket exhaust on the Moon’s
regolith
Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestria ...
, providing valuable insights for future Artemis missions.
[ ] A similar SCALPSS payload was previously flown aboard the
IM-1
IM-1 was a robotic Moon landing mission conducted by Intuitive Machines (IM) in February 2024 using a Intuitive Machines Nova-C, Nova-C lunar lander. After contact with the lunar surface on February 22 the lander tipped to an unplanned 30 de ...
CLPS mission.
See also
*
Starship HLS
Starship HLS (Human Landing System) is a lunar lander variant of the Starship spacecraft that is slated to transfer astronauts from a lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back. It is being designed and built by SpaceX under the Human Lan ...
*
Apollo Lunar Module
The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed sp ...
References
External links
Blue Moon Mark 1– Blue Origin
{{Moon spacecraft
2025 in Florida
2025 in spaceflight
2025 on the Moon
Exploration of the Moon
Missions to the Moon
Artemis program
Commercial Lunar Payload Services