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NASA has chosen a Blue Origin-led team to develop a second lunar landing system for the Artemis program, as the agency looks to provide competition with SpaceX and support long-term exploration of the moon.

The winning team includes Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic and Honeybee Robotics. The contract is valued at $3.4 billion, but Blue Origin Vice President John Couluris said the company plans to contribute “well north” of that number — meaning the entire endeavor will likely cost at least $7 billion.

Blue Origin said it would develop a 52-foot tall lander it’s calling Blue Moon and land it on the lunar south pole. Blue Moon is sized to fit inside the payload fairing of Blue’s under-development New Glenn rocket. The Blue-led team is planning to attempt an uncrewed mission a year before it will take astronauts. Another version of the lander is also being designed to take as much as 30 metric tons of cargo mass to the lunar surface.

Shortly after the news was announced, Jeff Bezos tweeted that he was “honored to be on this journey” with the space agency.

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Source @TechCrunch