Jeff Bezos says Blue Origin lunar lander could refuel using ICE from the moon

Jeff Bezos says his Blue Origin lunar lander could refuel using ICE from the moon Jeff Bezos says his moon lander could use water and ice to fuel its propulsion The lander could separate hydrogen and oxygen from the ice  Those gases would be combined to create fuel for the craft's engine Water-ice was confirmed to exist beneath the moon's surface last year Future NASA-funded mining efforts could help unlock that resource in the future

By James Pero For Dailymail.com

Published: 20:18 BST, 20 June 2019 | Updated: 20:29 BST, 20 June 2019

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Once billionaire Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin lander makes it to the moon, the Amazon CEO says it won't have to go very far to re-fuel.

In a space summit in Boston, Bezos told an audience that his somewhat mysterious moon lander will use ice harvested from the lunar surface to create fuel.

'We know things about the moon now we didn’t know about during the Apollo days,' Bezos said at the conference as reported by CNBC.  

'We can harvest that ice and use to make hydrogen and oxygen, which are rocket propellants.' 

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Jeff Bezos says a recently discovered trove of water and ice in the moon's surface could fuel a lunar lander owned by his company Blue Origin.

Jeff Bezos says a recently discovered trove of water and ice in the moon's surface could fuel a lunar lander owned by his company Blue Origin. 

Water ice was first confirmed to be present on the moon last year in a study by NASA and lies mostly within the shaded parts of craters near the moon's poles. In these locations, the temperature rarely ever exceeds -250 degrees Farenheit. 

That ice could be harvested and converted to rocket fuel using electric power stations aboard the lander, said Bezos. 

The station, powered by solar panels or a nuclear generator would separate the hydrogen and oxygen gas which would eventually be recombined in the rocket's engine and ignited to create propulsion.   

Bezos also recently announced that the lander's engine, the BE7, successfully completed its first hotfire test at Marshall Space Flight Center.

'Data looks great and hardware is in perfect condition. Test went full planned duration – 35

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