Blue Moon
Overview
Lunar landing system family with a cargo-focused Mark 1 variant and a crew-capable Mark 2 variant being developed for NASA's Artemis program.
The first Blue Moon MK1 'Endurance' completed environmental testing inside NASA Johnson Space Center's Thermal Vacuum Chamber A in May 2026 and moved into radio-frequency compatibility testing at Lunar Plant 1 in Florida, ahead of a launch to the lunar south pole on New Glenn under NASA's CLPS program. A NASA Moon Base program update on August 4, 2026 said Endurance has since also cleared communications checkouts with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System and the Deep Space Network, with cryogenic (LOX/LH2) propellant-loading tests of the BE-7-powered lander next before final launch integration; that same August 4, 2026 update is the first NASA material to explicitly cite a first-quarter-2027 target, reconciling the earlier gap between NASA's older 'no earlier than fall 2026' language and trade-press reporting of a slip tied to New Glenn's grounding since the May 28, 2026 LC-36 explosion. NASA's February 2026 Artemis architecture overhaul reassigned MK2: it will first fly an uncrewed/prototype docking demo with Orion in low Earth orbit on the restructured Artemis III (targeted 2027, crew named June 9, 2026), then compete with SpaceX's Starship HLS for the program's first crewed Moon landing, now targeted for Artemis IV as soon as early 2028 (Artemis V, a second landing, as soon as late 2028) - NASA has not yet decided which lander flies first.