They’ll return to the Gateway and board Orion once again to go home to Earth. Astronaut Randy Bresnik explains: https://go.nasa.gov/2qu3Bx8

The team can now begin building the spacecraft. Lucy will be the first-ever mission to visit the swarms of Trojan asteroids — “fossils of planet formation” — that orbit in tandem with Jupiter. Details: https://go.nasa.gov/2qyeHRW

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A new space race is upon us. But unlike the cold war-driven days of the 1960’s and early 1970’s, it is now a multi-player competition to dominate and exploit the final frontier. The U.S. and Russia have been joined by the European Union, China, India and Japan, as well as numerous commercial space ventures, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Where does NASA sit in all of this, in the rapidly changing world of the second space race. In Seeking Delphi episode #35, host Mark Sackler gets an overview of where the agency is headed, from former NASA program director for launch systems, Dan Dumbacher. There’s also a very special announcement of the upcoming ASCEND** space conference, slated for Las Vegas in November of 2020.

** Accelerating Space Commerce, Exploration, and New Discovery.

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin is joining forces with three other major aerospace firms in a “national team” to develop a human lunar lander for NASA.

The company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, announced Oct. 22 his intent to work with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper on the unnamed lunar lander, the proposal for which they will submit to NASA for its Human Landing Services competition.

“I am excited to announce that we have put together a national team to go back to the moon,” he said during an onstage interview at the 70th International Astronautical Congress here, where he received an Excellence in Industry award. “We could not ask for better partners.”

Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company, Blue Origin, no longer plans to build its giant lunar lander for NASA by itself. The company announced today that it is teaming up with three other legacy space companies — Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper — to develop a lunar landing system for the space agency that is fully capable of taking humans to and from the Moon’s surface.

Photo shows the model of the Hyperbola-2, a reusable rocket developed by a private Chinese company. (Photo provided to Xinhua)

A Chinese reusable carrier rocket that uses liquid oxygen-methane propellants will be launched for the first time in 2021, making up for China’s lack of reusable liquid-propellant rockets.

BEIJING, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) — A Chinese reusable carrier rocket that uses liquid oxygen-methane propellants will be launched for the first time in 2021.