After losing out to SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ rocket company will get a chance to carry astronauts to the moon’s surface on a mission scheduled for 2029.

在输给SpaceX之后，杰夫·贝索斯的火箭公司将有机会在2029年的一次任务中搭载宇航员登陆月球表面。


An artist’s impression of the moon lander that Blue Origin and other companies will build for NASA’s astronaut mission to visit the moon’s surface no earlier than 2029.

蓝色起源和其他公司将为NASA的航天员任务建造登月器，该任务将于2029年之后进行。这是艺术家对登月器的设想。

On their second try, Jeff Bezos and his rocket company have won a contract to take NASA astronauts to the moon.

在第二次尝试后，杰夫·贝索斯和他的火箭公司赢得了一项合同，将NASA航天员送上月球。

NASA announced on Friday that it had awarded a contract to Mr. Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, to provide a lunar lander for a moon mission that is scheduled to launch in 2029. NASA agreed to pay $3.4 billion for the 50-foot-tall spacecraft, which is named Blue Moon and can transport four astronauts to the moon’s surface.

NASA周五宣布已授予贝索斯的蓝色起源公司一项合同，为一项计划于2029年发射的月球任务提供着陆器。NASA同意支付34亿美元购买这款50英尺高的宇宙飞船，名为“蓝月亮”，可以将四名宇航员运送到月球表面。

The mission, Artemis V, is another critical piece of NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts back to the moon as part of an effort to explore its south pole region. Astronauts are to land on the moon in a vehicle built by SpaceX for the Artemis III and IV missions.

该任务“阿尔忒弥斯五号”是NASA“阿尔忒弥斯计划”的又一个关键部分，该计划旨在将宇航员送回月球，探索其南极地区。宇航员将乘坐SpaceX公司为阿耳忒弥斯三号和四号任务制造的特种车辆登上月球。

John Couluris, Blue Origin’s vice president for lunar transportation, said that the company was contributing “well north” of the price of the NASA contract amount to the development effort and that it, not NASA, would absorb any cost overruns. In the past, some members of Congress have complained about providing taxpayer money to Blue Origin, given Mr. Bezos’ wealth.

蓝色起源负责月球运输的副总裁约翰·库鲁里斯表示，该公司为开发工作提供了“远高于”美国宇航局合同金额的费用，并且该公司(而非美国宇航局)将承担任何超支费用。过去，鉴于贝索斯的财富，一些国会议员抱怨向蓝色起源浪费纳税人的钱。

”We want more competition,” Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, said during the announcement on Friday at NASA’s headquarters in Washington. “It means that you have reliability. You have backups.”

“我们想要更多的竞争，”美国国家航空航天局局长比尔·纳尔逊周五在位于华盛顿的美国国家航空航天局总部宣布。这意味着你有可靠性。你得有备份。“。
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Lisa Watson-Morgan, the manager for the human landing system program at NASA, said the second lander “also helps us with a more diversified industrial base, and that will help us advance innovation in the future.”

美国国家航空航天局人类着陆系统项目经理丽莎·沃森-摩根说，第二个着陆器“还帮助我们建立了一个更加多样化的工业基础，这将有助于我们在未来推进创新。”

The winning of the contract could start a promising rebound year for Blue Origin after a number of delays and setbacks — including the failure of one of its New Shepard vehicles , which travel to space but not to orbit, during a launch last September that carried experiments but no passengers. Blue Origin has identified the cause and hopes to resume New Shepard flights involving both space tourists and scientific cargo later this year.

在经历了一系列的延误和挫折之后--包括去年9月的一次发射中，蓝色起源公司的 "新谢泼德 "飞行器发生故障，该飞行器可以进入太空，但不能进入轨道，该飞行器载有实验品但没有乘客。蓝色起源公司已查明原因，并希望在今年晚些时候恢复涉及太空游客和科学货物的飞行。（新谢泼德是蓝色起源公司为太空旅游开发的完全可重复使用的 亚轨道 运载火箭。这辆车以艾伦·谢泼德 (Alan Shepard)的名字命名，他于 1961 年成为第一个进入太空的美国人，后来成为第五个在月球上行走的人。该飞行器能够垂直起飞和着陆，可以将人类和客户的有效载荷运送到太空边缘。）

And some hardware manufactured by Blue Origin might finally be used on an orbital mission in the coming months. The company built engines for the booster stage of the Vulcan rocket being developed by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of the aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

蓝色起源制造的一些硬件可能最终会在未来几个月的轨道任务中使用。该公司为联合发射联盟正在开发的火神号火箭的助推器级制造发动机，联合发射联盟是航空航天巨头波音公司和洛克希德·马丁公司的合资企业。

Blue Origin might also provide some public glimpses of New Glenn, a much larger rocket that is to launch payloads to orbit.

蓝色起源还可能提供一些新格伦火箭的公开照片，这是一种更大的火箭，将有效载荷发射到轨道上。（新格伦火箭是蓝色起源公司于2012年开始研发的可重复使用重型运载火箭。该火箭的大略规格于2016年9月公布，是一种直径7米的两节式火箭。其第一级火箭是由7个蓝色起源设计和制造的BE-4发动机提供动力，就像之前的新雪帕德火箭一样，新格伦火箭的第一级火箭被设计为可重复使用。）

For the lunar lander contract, Blue Origin, in collaboration with other aerospace companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, beat a second team led by Dynetics, a defense company based in Huntsville, Ala.

在月球着陆器合同中，蓝色起源与波音和洛克希德马丁等其他航空航天公司合作，击败了由总部位于阿拉巴马州亨茨维尔的国防公司Dynetics领导的第二个团队。

“The feeling is absolutely fantastic,” Mr. Couluris said. “This is Step 1, though. We have a lot to do before we successfully land and return astronauts.”

"这种感觉绝对是太棒了，"库鲁斯先生说。"不过这只是第一步。在我们成功着陆并送回宇航员之前，我们还有很多事情要做。"

The Blue Moon lander is designed to fit within the 23-foot-wide diameter of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, and will weigh more than 45 metric tons when filled with propellants.

“蓝月亮”着陆器被设计成适合蓝色起源公司的“新格伦”火箭直径23英尺宽的直径，装满推进剂后重量将超过45吨。

For Artemis V, the lander will first dock at Gateway, a small outpost in orbit around the moon. Four astronauts will travel to Gateway in another spacecraft, NASA’s Orion capsule. Then they will transfer to the Blue Moon lander for a stay near the lunar south pole lasting about a week.

对于阿尔忒弥斯5号，着陆器将首先停靠在一个环绕月球轨道的小前哨站。四名宇航员将乘坐另一架宇宙飞船NASA的猎户座太空舱前往该前哨站。然后他们将转移到蓝月亮着陆器，停留在月球南极大约一周的时间。

After their visit to the moon, the lander will blast off and return to Gateway, and the Orion capsule will take all four astronauts back to Earth. The same lander could be used for several missions.

在他们访问月球后，着陆器将发射并返回前哨站，猎户座太空舱将带所有四名宇航员返回地球。同一个着陆器可以用于多项任务。

A second Blue Origin spacecraft will be needed to transport liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen from Earth to lunar orbit to refill the propellant tanks of the Blue Moon. Transfer of propellants in the near-weightless environment of space, especially ultracold liquid hydrogen, is tricky and has not yet been demonstrated on a large scale.

将需要第二个蓝色起源航天器将液氢和液氧从地球运送到月球轨道，以补充蓝月号的推进剂罐。在近乎失重的太空环境中转移推进剂，特别是超冷液态氢，是很棘手的，而且还没有得到大规模的验证。

Mr. Couluris said Blue Origin would conduct an uncrewed demonstration flight of the lander in 2028, a year before it is to be used for astronauts.

库鲁里斯说，蓝色起源将在2028年对着陆器进行一次无人驾驶的演示飞行，这比它用于宇航员还要早一年。

“We fully expect to meet the NASA schedule,” Mr. Couluris said.

“我们完全有望满足NASA的时间表，”库鲁里斯先生说。

Mr. Couluris said the lunar lander could also be configured to carry 30 metric tons of cargo instead of passengers, “to form the foundation of habitats and other permanent infrastructure” on the moon’s surface.

库鲁里斯先生表示，月球着陆器也可以配置成能够携带30公吨的货物而不是乘客，以“构建月面基地和其他永久性基础设施”的基础。

The Artemis V mission was the second bid by Mr. Bezos’ company to land on the moon. In 2021, Blue Origin and Dynetics were disappointed when NASA awarded SpaceX a fixed $2.9 billion contract to build a variation of its giant Starship vehicle that would land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than half a century .

阿尔忒弥斯五号任务是贝索斯公司第二次登月尝试。2021年，当NASA授予SpaceX固定29亿美元的合同时，蓝色起源和戴克内特斯感到失望，以建造巨型“星际飞船”的变种，该飞船将使宇航员再次登上月球，超过半个世纪以来这是第一次。
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The two companies protested the decision, especially because NASA officials originally aimed to award two contracts.

这两家公司抗议这一决定，特别是因为NASA官员原本打算授予两份合同。

That would have paralleled successful efforts by NASA that turned over to private companies the transportation of cargo and crew to the International Space Station. But NASA officials said at the time that there was not enough money in their budget for a second lander. SpaceX’s $2.9 billion bid was the lowest bid by far. Blue Origin’s proposed design had a price tag of $6 billion, and the one offered by Dynetics was even more expensive.

与美国宇航局将向国际空间站运送货物和人员的工作，移交给私营公司的成功努力相仿。美国宇航局官员当时说，他们的预算中没有足够的资金用于第二个登陆器。SpaceX的29亿美元投标是迄今为止最低的投标。蓝色起源公司提出的设计标价为60亿美元，而Dynetics公司提出的设计甚至更贵。

The federal Government Accountability Office rejected the protests of the two companies. Blue Origin then sued in federal court and again lost .

联邦政府问责局驳回了这两家公司的抗议。蓝色起源随后在联邦法院提起诉讼，再次败诉。

Last September, after winning a larger budget from Congress, NASA announced a competition for a second lunar lander. Dynetics and Blue Origin decided to compete again, though there was some shuffling of the companies participating in the efforts. Northrop Grumman, which was part of Blue Origin’s original proposal, switched to the Dynetics team.

去年九月，NASA在获得国会提供的更大预算之后，宣布了第二次登月着陆器的比赛。Dynetics和蓝色起源决定再次竞争，尽管参与努力的公司有所变动。作为蓝色起源初始提议的一部分，北罗格曼加入了Dynetics的团队。
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Blue Origin added to its team Boeing; Astrobotic, a small Pittsburgh company that is developing robotic lunar landers; and Honeybee Robotics, a space technology company that Blue Origin bought last year.

蓝色起源将波音，一家正在开发机器人月球着陆器的小型匹兹堡公司和蜜蜂机器人公司（蓝色起源去年收购的一家太空技术公司）加入了其团队。

The design of the spacecraft also changed, adding in-space propellant transfer.

太空飞行器的设计也进行了改变，加入了太空燃料转移技术。
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But it will not reach the moon for a while.

它暂时不会到达月球。

SpaceX’s initial $2.9 billion contract was to provide the lander for the first moon landing during Artemis III, which is currently scheduled for late 2025 but is likely to slip to 2026 or later. In November, NASA exercised a $1.15 billion option in that contract for SpaceX to provide a lander for Artemis IV as well, a mission that is scheduled for 2028.

SpaceX最初的29亿美元合同是为阿尔忒弥斯III号的首次登月提供着陆器，该着陆器目前计划在2025年底完成，但可能会推迟到2026年或更晚。去年11月，NASA在该合同中行使了一项价值11.5亿美元的选择权，让SpaceX也为阿尔忒弥斯4号提供着陆器，该任务定于2028年执行。

After Artemis V, NASA will be able to choose between the SpaceX and Blue Origin designs for later missions.

在阿尔忒弥斯5号之后，美国宇航局将能够在SpaceX和蓝色起源的设计之间进行选择。

Eventually, companies and people outside of NASA could also buy Blue Moon rides. “We do have a number of entities that are interested,” Mr. Couluris said.

最终，NASA以外的公司和人员也可以购买蓝月亮号的航班。"我们确实有许多感兴趣的实体，"科雷里斯先生说。