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| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | Blue Origin | Astrobotic | CNSA |
| Prime contractor | Blue Origin (with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, Honeybee Robotics on prime team) | Astrobotic | China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) |
| Status | In development | Lost | Landed |
| Customer | NASA-HLS | NASA-CLPS | CNSA |
| Launch date | 2030 (NET — Artemis V crewed); uncrewed demo 2027 | 2024-01-08 | 2024-05-03 |
| Landing date | — | — | 2024-06-01 |
| Landing site | Lunar south pole — 30-day surface stays | Sinus Viscositatis (planned; never reached) | Apollo crater, South Pole-Aitken Basin (lunar far side) |
| Payload | 20 t reusable / 30 t one-way to surface; crew 2-4 for up to 30 days (2026-01-04) | 20 payloads from 7 nations (2024-01-08) | 1,935.3 g of lunar far-side regolith returned to Earth (2024-06-25) |
| Contract value | $3.4B (2023-05-19) | $108M (2024-01-08) | — |
| Outcome | Selected May 2023 as second HLS provider for sustained Artemis-era lunar operations. Full-scale prototype delivered to NASA Johnson Space Center in early 2026 for astronaut training. Completed third pressurized suit-test campaign with NASA Johnson's Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS). | Maiden flight of ULA's Vulcan Centaur. Helium pressurant valve failed to reseal post-actuation, over-pressurizing the oxidizer tank and rupturing it. Lander commanded into controlled re-entry; burned up over South Pacific 2024-01-18. | First-ever sample return from the lunar far side and the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Used the Queqiao-2 relay satellite for far-side comms. Samples revealed unexpectedly cohesive grain behavior and excavated material from the Moon's mantle. |
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Underlying dataset: GET /api/moon/landers. Methodology: /moon/methodology.