Blue Origin

Artemis III landing on the Moon in 2024 has always been a lofty goal, but NASA officials stuck to the date even as the previous administration left. Today, they began to officially acknowledge the breakdown of the deadline.

NASA announced contract awards to five companies for further development of lunar lander concepts for its Artemis Program on Tuesday.

This week Astra launched their 5th test rocket which didn’t reach orbit again, both SpaceX and Blue Origin launched missions for NASA, and emails possibly leaked from ULA show their dark side.

After the successful first crewed flight last month, Blue Origin launched 17th New Shepard mission full of scietific payloads for NASA and other researchers.

Ars Technica reported Tuesday that Blue Origin has rolled out the first test tank for their “Project Jarvis” New Glenn upper stage. Ars photographer Trevor Mahlmann captured photos showing the tank’s movement at Blue’s site on LC-36 in Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Update: Blue Origin is pushing back the mission target by 24 hours.

Blue Origin has announced its next New Shepard rocket mission called NS-17 will take place on Wednesday, August 25. The mission carrying NASA technology and a special art installation will be an uncrewed spaceflight following founder Jeff Bezos’ trip to space on NS-16.

This week, SpaceX has continued their work at Starbase, 34 more OneWeb satellites were launched into orbit, and SLS has gained its Orion mass simulator.

A few weeks back the US Government Accountability Office denied Blue Origin and Dynetic’s protest of NASA’s Human Landing System contract. Since then Blue Origin has been on a PR campaign to throw mud at the winner, SpaceX, and has started a lawsuit against NASA.

SpaceX Starship will officially be the single solution for the first lunar landing mission under NASA’s Artemis program to return to the Moon. This comes after the US GAO backed the decision to use Starship as the lander, stating it didn’t break any laws with the selection. The space agency first announced its decision to land astronauts on the Moon with SpaceX in April, but legal protests from the Blue Origin-led National Team and Dynetics halted progress for the contract.

This week, the focus has been on Blue Origin. On Tuesday, they completed the first crewed flight of New Shepard, flying the oldest and youngest person to ever visit space.

Update: Skittles will not be selling these in stores but rather giving a select few away on their social media platforms.

Along with the fancy watches, sapphire dotted wings, and national media attention, the crew of Blue Origin’s NS-16 flight also carried some Skittles with them to space. Now the company will give away a number of limited-edition Skittles Zero-G pack of the candies on their social media channels.

It has been over a month since Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos announced he was flying to space. After decades of development, and many test flights of the New Shepard rocket, the day finally arrived.

This morning Blue Origin is planning their first crewed flight of their suborbital New Shepard rocket. The crew will be Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, legendary aviator Wally Funk, and early ticket holder Oliver Daemen.

Update: Blue Origin spoke with CNBC about the reasoning for Daemen’s selection.

Blue Origin announced today that the fourth member of the NS-16 crew will be an 18-year-old from the Netherlands who bought a ticket on the New Shepard rocket.

Today was a great day for Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin. Bezos is making a $200 million dollar donation to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, while the charity Club for the Future is making 19 $1 million grants to space-related organizations.

On July 20th Blue Origin will attempt to launch their founder and a group of explorers to the edge of space with their first crewed mission. Blue shared details on where and when to watch the flight, but the public will be pushed far away.

With the upcoming flight of Richard Branson on Unity22 this weekend it’s easy to say there’s probably some tension between Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. But instead of raising to the occasion and celebrating the strives of their industry, Blue Origin throws a low blow and trashes Galactic on a technicality.

Today Jeff Bezos announced that Blue Origin has picked Wally Funk to join the crew that will fly on New Shepard’s first crewed flight. The legendary aviator, now 84 years old, has done everything except finally receive her chance to fly to space.

So this happened today. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded to a Vulcan rocket teaser video from ULA CEO Tory Bruno with a slightly provocative “when do the engines arrive” response. Without mentioning Blue Origin, the taunt is mostly targeted at Jeff Bezos’ rocket company.

Jeff Bezos is just a few weeks away from being among the first humans to leave Earth in his New Shepard rocket, and a growing number of people are hoping he won’t be allowed back.