Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 2 human lander

Blue Moon Mark 2 is Blue Origin's crewed lunar lander under development for NASA's Artemis campaign. The accelerated Alpha Lander architecture announced in October 2026 defers propellant transfer and uses three expendable transfer stages to reach an elliptical polar lunar orbit. Orion would dock there, allowing two astronauts to descend to the lunar South Pole and later return to the waiting crew. A Mark 2 test article is also planned for docking and crew evaluations in Earth orbit on Artemis III. NASA requires an uncrewed demonstration before crewed landings and has not assigned either provider to a specific lunar landing mission.