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Blue Origin has shown interest in going to the moon, and they're working on a lunar lander to do it. But it's not clear to me how they'll get the lander there.

Will they use one of their rockets? If so, which?

New Shepard is being developed for manned spaceflight but it seems destined for suborbital launch only. New Glenn seems twice as large as Falcon 9, and it's just a hair shorter than Saturn V, but it's advertised as a heavy-duty satellite launcher.

So I want to guess it will be either New Glenn or an evolution of New Glenn?

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The National Team proposal comprised three separate vehicles, a Transfer Element provided by Northrop Grumman, a Descent Element provided by Blue Origin, and an Ascent Element provided by Lockheed Martin. Public statements from those companies indicate that vehicles could have been launched separately or combined. Several launch vehicles provide enough oomph for the separate launch vehicle approach; very few provide enough oomph for the combined approach. Which launch vehicle or vehicles they used as the basis for their the HLS bid is apparently proprietary. I wrote "apparently" because that information is not forthcoming in the public statements by those three companies.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, David! This is helpful! $\endgroup$
    – user39728
    May 6, 2021 at 4:12
  • $\begingroup$ NASA explicitly called out the fact that the elements are compatible with multiple commercial launch providers as an advantage. Whereas Moonship, for example, can only be launched on one single booster that doesn't even exist yet. $\endgroup$
    – Jörg W Mittag
    May 6, 2021 at 19:43

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