Blue Origin and its “National Team” partners Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper have delivered their full scale lunar lander mock-up to NASA. The space agency will use the engineering prototype to simulate how it could get “crew, equipment, supplies and samples off and on the vehicle” in future moon missions, according to the press release.
While not a full prototype, the 40-foot-high mock-up does include the descent element based on Blue Origin’s Blue Moon cargo lander and BE-7 LOX/hydrogen engine. It also carries the ascent element developed by Lockheed Martin, including avionics, software, life support hardware and crew interfaces. Some of that tech is from Lockheed Martin’s human-rated, deep-space Orion vehicle that’s supposed to fly on NASA’s Artemis I and II moon test missions.