NASA awards Blue Origin $700m Mars orbiter contract

(SpaceEnergy) NASA has awarded Blue Origin a contract worth up to $700 million to develop, launch and operate a Mars telecommunications orbiter using hybrid solar-electric and chemical propulsion.

The firm-fixed-price contract calls for Blue Origin to deliver the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO) no later than 31 December 2028 as part of NASA’s planned Mars Telecommunications Network.

Blue Origin said on 2 September that MTO will be based on its Blue Ring spacecraft platform, using a hybrid solar-electric and chemical propulsion system to provide orbital manoeuvring and payload-deployment capability. Multiple Blue Ring spacecraft are already in production at the company’s Huntsville, Alabama facility, with production capacity sized for four vehicles annually.

NASA said Blue Origin will design, develop, integrate, launch and operate the spacecraft. The network is intended to provide high-bandwidth communications and navigation services for robotic and future human Mars missions.

“MTO is the backbone of America’s Mars exploration program for the next decade and beyond,” Blue National Security president Tory Bruno said, adding that hardware for the Blue Ring platform was already being built.

The spacecraft will carry software-defined radios and is designed with orbital repositioning capability and an architecture intended to allow the Mars communications network to expand as additional spacecraft are deployed.