Monica Jackson
NASA’s Langley Research Center has partnered with Blue Origin through a Tipping Point solicitation to leverage sensor suites for lunar landing missions.
The space agency said Friday the effort will integrate and test Langley’s Navigation Doppler Lidar technology, Terrain Relative Navigation and altimetry sensors aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard vertical takeoff vertical landing suborbital vehicle under a $3M agreement.
NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory will participate in the development of the moon landing technology.
The agreement with Blue Origin is one of 10 proposals, which have a collective value of $44 million, that NASA selected under the Tipping Point solicitation.
Kim Cannon, technology transition lead and program specialist at Langley, said building partnerships allows NASA to complete its operations that private companies can, in turn, take advantage of.
The agency also recently partnered with United Launch Alliance to develop “tipping point” systems to manage cryogenic liquid and retrieve space vehicles in midair under a $2M agreement.
