Could Blue Moon Mark 1 launch on other rockets? SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan vehicles both likely have the lift capacity to push the vehicle to the Moon. But Vulcan is also sidelined at present and has a long line of Space Force payloads in the queue. So what of Falcon Heavy?
There’s a problem. The Mark 1 lander is powered by the BE-7 engine, which runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. According to a source, the lander, in the hours after launch, requires “backfilling” from the New Glenn upper stage to top off propellants.
This all but rules out Falcon Heavy, which has an upper stage that uses kerosene propellant rather than hydrogen.
Artemis program
Due to the Mark 1 issues outlined above, there will either be significant delays to, or the need to restructure the early phases of, the Moon Base program. The lunar rovers under development by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost, for example, have a mass of about 1 ton. Only Mark 1 and SpaceX’s Starship have that kind of delivery capacity.
