Blue Origin

Blue Origin is gearing up to launch their first crewed New Shepard rocket in July and we now have the first two confirmed passengers, which some of you probably saw coming.

In a closed permit application, Blue Origin proposed modifications to Grouper Road, a road on the north side of Port Canaveral, that would allow their New Glenn booster transporter to enter and leave the port.

The secretive company founded by Jeff Bezos has been in and out of the news a lot in recent years. Below is an overview of the facilities they have built up across Florida to support their mission to break into the commercial launch industry.

Blue Origin released details on the requirements their astronauts will need to fly their New Shepard rocket. Do you have what it takes to fly on the first crewed flight this July?

Over the last year, many have thought about when will Blue Origin finish testing their New Shephard rocket and finally launch their first crewed flight. Well, the wait is finally over.

The secret company from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos shared a video this morning to announce you have a chance to buy a ticket on their first crewed New Shepard flight.

Back on April 16th, NASA announced that SpaceX would win the bid for Artemis’ Human Landing System contract. After a year-long competition, Blue Origin disagrees with the selection and hopes to get it changed.

Amazon’s answer to SpaceX’s satellite-based Starlink internet service is called Project Kuiper, and now the company has secured flights on ULA’s Atlas V rocket. These launches will be the first of many to build out the constellation of 3,236 satellites.

Blue Origin announced this weekend that they will attempt to launch their 15th New Shepard flight later this week. This marks the second flight for New Shephard this year following the January flight of Blue’s 4th vehicle, the first built for future crewed flights.

The new heavy-lift launcher was supposed to take its first flight later this year but that was taking into account they would get the recent NSSL contracts from the Department of Defense which ended up going to SpaceX and ULA. Now the company has revised its plan for when it will debut its new launcher.

The secretive rocket company created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been developing rockets to compete in both the space tourism and commercial launch markets named New Glenn after the first American to reach orbit, John Glenn.

The rocket has been in development for almost 9 years and since then we’ve only seen rare glimpses of the current stages of development. They plan to make their debut launch of the rocket later this year and we’ve luckily got a glimpse of what will be used to test their new launchpad for this coming flight.

Still in the afterglow of Blue Origin’s 14th flight of its New Shepard rocket, Jeff Bezos’ space tourism venture is planning another suborbital rocket launch to keep the momentum going in 2021. According to reports, these next missions could be some of the biggest in the company’s history.

Blue Origin is launching a New Shepard rocket for its NS-14 mission from West Texas today at 11:57 a.m. EST (16:57 UTC). NS-14 is the first mission for Jeff Bezos’ rocket company in 2021 and only the third New Shepard mission in the last 13 months.

In the future, Blue Origin plans to fly passengers on the New Shepard vehicle. The suborbital rocket travels to the Karman line that defines space then lands near the launch site. Passengers will see the planet from space and experience zero gravity for a few magical minutes before returning to the surface of Earth.

While SpaceX earns most of the headlines for booster recovery efforts, Blue Origin also plans to launch and recover their orbital rocket New Glenn as early as this year. Blue Origin currently has two rockets in various stages of development, and a sentimental step toward flying the larger of the two rockets was reached this week.

Blue Origin’s sub-orbital rocket New Shepherd currently flies and lands, but it’s still in a stage of testing before it flies paying customers to space and back. They also have been developing the heavy-lift New Glenn rocket that is already competing against SpaceX and ULA for commercial and government launch contracts.

Buying a ticket to space has long been a dream that will soon become reality for some and a possibility for even more.

We’re very much in the early days of companies competing for customers who want to experience space firsthand, and 2021 is poised to be a pivotal year for companies including Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin for proving their technology is passenger-ready.

A new report published today predicts the size of the space tourism and travel market by 2030 based on the current pace of innovation. The upshot is that the number of space tourists among us could be measured in the tens of thousands by the end of the decade.

While delivery of new methane powered engines for United Launch Alliance was expected to occur this year, Blue Origin pushed back the delivery date to next year due to more time needed to solve issues with the engine’s turbo pump.

NASA’s Launch Services Program is designed to help launch uncrewed rockets that deliver spacecraft into orbit or farther out into the universe. The latest company to benefit from the program is Blue Origin, as NASA has announced that the company will be awarded a Launch Services II contract.

NASA awarded three distinct human landing system proposals from Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX for further development in April. These 21st-century human landing systems are designed to transfer astronauts from the Orion spacecraft to the surface of the Moon on Artemis missions happening this decade. Blue Origin, which leads the National Team, shared a major update on its HLS progress today.

This week Blue Origin continued to test its BE-7 engine that will be used as part of NASA’s Artemis program. The testing entailed a fourth thrust chamber test, which proved successful and went according to plan. 

Blue Origin’s chief operating officer, Terry Benedict, will be leaving the company on Friday, December 3. The announcement comes via an email sent out to employees this week from CEO Bob Smith.