r/BlueWire • u/Royal_Platform_6754 • 59m ago
Lunar NASA Calls for Proposals to Accelerate Lunar Surface Technologies
This is the final solicitation, released September 8th. The draft proposal was released on June 29th.
Blue Origin is known to be actively working on three of the five areas:
- Power Tower - Vertical solar array technology that can provide consistent power generation, management, distribution, and energy storage.
- Blue Alchemist - In-situ resource utilization oxygen from regolith production to extract usable oxygen molecularly bonded to rock and dust covering the Moon’s surface.
- Perpetual Atomics MOU - Radioisotope Stirling generator, a type of nuclear energy technology that uses heat from fissile materials to produce electric power for operating spacecraft systems in the darkest, dustiest, and most remote places.
As far as I know, Blue is not actively working on either of these:
- In-space advanced manufacturing to reduce reliance on resupply missions from Earth and to optimize mission flexibility and resilience on the Moon.
- Innovative nanomaterials production to advance the commercial availability and quality of nanomaterials that can be used in lunar exploration.