Jeff Bezos announced to his space company Monday that Bob Smith, the six year CEO of Blue Origin, will be replaced by former Amazon executive Dave Limp. Limp’s first day at Blue will be December 4 while Smith will stay on to help with the transition until January 2.
Expand Expanding Close
A pension fund is suing Amazon over its contract to launch Kuiper satellites on Blue Origin, ULA, and Arianespace rockets because SpaceX was not included in the discussion. The suit argues that Bezos’ rivalry with Elon Musk created contracts that did not best meet the company’s fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders.
Expand Expanding Close
At COP26, a climate conference, Jeff Bezos pledged $2 billion of the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund to be dedicated for land restoration and food production. While speaking on the matter he cited how much seeing Earth from space changes the way in which you view the planet.
Expand Expanding Close
Jeff Bezos launched into space on a New Shepard rocket back in July. That was a record-breaking flight in multiple regards, but now Guinness World Records made it official.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
The last few weeks have seen some fierce competition and mudslinging between private spaceflight companies. From Elon Musk’s criticisms of ULA and Blue Origin, to Blue Origin’s criticism of Virgin Galactic, there has been very little peace on Space Twitter recently. That’s why Elon Musk’s recent reply to Richard Branson was so nice to see.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close
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.
Expand Expanding Close