Integrated Lander Vehicle

Integrated Landing Vehicle
DesignerNational Team (Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Draper Laboratory)
Country of originUS
Applicationscrewed lunar lander
Production
StatusSelected by NASA as the second HLS Lander
Built0

The Integrated Lander Vehicle (ILV) was a human spaceflight lunar lander design concept proposed in 2020/21 for the NASA Human Landing System (HLS) component of the Artemis program. Blue Origin was the lead contractor for the multi-element lunar lander that was to include major components from several large US government space contractors including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper Laboratory.

The lander concept was initiated in 2019, and in April 2020, Blue Origin won a US$579 million contract from NASA for a year-long design concept study to be completed in early 2021 in competition with two other designs.[1][2] NASA had intended to subsequently issue build and test contracts to one or two of the three 2020 awardees in order to advance the human landing element of the Artemis Program. In the event, the ILV proposal was not selected by NASA in April 2021, and a sole HLS award was won by SpaceX with the Starship HLS proposal.[3][4][5]

Blue Origin protested the award to SpaceX at the US Government Accountability Office, but lost the protest by late July.[6][7] In mid-August, Blue Origin filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims challenging "NASA's unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals."[6][8]

The National Team of Blue Origin/Northrop Grumman/Lockheed-Martin/Draper was just one of three organizations who developed lunar lander designs for the Artemis program over a year-long period in 2020–21 under the NASA HLS funding rubric. The funding for the design process during 2020/21 was that NASA would pay the combined contractors US$579 million in design development funding. The other teams selected were Dynetics—with SNC and other unspecified companies with the Dynetics Human Landing System (DHLS)—with US$253 million in NASA funding, and SpaceX, with its Starship HLS concept, with US$135 million in NASA design funding.[2][1]

  1. ^ a b Burghardt, Thomas (1 May 2020). "NASA Selects Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX Human Landers for Artemis". NASASpaceFlight.com. Archived from the original on 15 May 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  2. ^ a b Potter, Sean (30 April 2020). "NASA Names Companies to Develop Human Landers for Artemis Missions". NASA. Archived from the original on 11 May 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
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