Blue Origin, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former presi ...

, the founder and executive chairman of

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles. Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company's name refers to the blue planet,

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...

, as the point of origin. Blue Origin develops orbital technology, rocket-powered vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL) vehicles for access to

suborbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital ...

and orbital

space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consi ...

. Initially focused on suborbital spaceflight, the company has designed, built and flown multiple testbeds of its New Shepard vehicle at its facilities in Culberson County, Texas. Developmental

test flight Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. ...

s of the New Shepard, named after the first American in space, Alan Shepard, began in April 2015, and flight testing is ongoing. Blue Origin rescheduled the original 2018 date for first passengers several times, and eventually successfully flew its first crewed mission on July 20, 2021. It has not yet begun commercial passenger flights, nor announced a firm date for when they would begin. On nearly every one of the test flights since 2015, the uncrewed vehicle has reached a test altitude of more than and achieved a top speed of more than Mach 3, reaching space above the Kármán line, with both the

space capsule A space capsule is an often-crewed spacecraft that uses a blunt-body reentry capsule to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without wings. Capsules are distinguished from other satellites primarily by the ability to survive reentry and return a payl ...

and its

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entir ...

booster successfully soft landing. Blue Origin moved into the orbital spaceflight technology development business in 2014, initially as a

rocket engine A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accorda ...

supplier for others via a contractual agreement to build a new large rocket engine, the

BE-4 The Blue Engine 4 or BE-4 is an oxygen-rich liquefied-methane-fueled staged-combustion rocket engine under development by Blue Origin. The BE-4 is being developed with private and public funding. The engine has been designed to produce of thr ...

, for major US launch system operator

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance (ULA), legally United Launch Alliance, LLC, is an American spacecraft launch service provider that manufactures and operates a number of rocket vehicles that are capable of launching spacecraft into orbits around Earth, a ...

(ULA). Blue said the "BE-4 would be 'ready for flight' by 2017." By 2015, Blue Origin had announced plans to also manufacture and fly its own orbital

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload ( spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and sys ...

, known as the

New Glenn New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. Named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, design work on the vehicle began in 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initial ...

, from the Florida Space Coast. had been expected to complete engine qualification testing by late 2018. However, by August 2021, the flight engines for ULA have still not been qualified, and

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sc ...

revealed in an in-depth article serious technical and managerial problems in the BE-4 program. In May 2019, Jeff Bezos unveiled Blue Origin's vision for space and also plans for a moon lander known as "

Blue Moon A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year: the third of four full moons in a season. The phrase in modern usage has nothing to do with the actual color of the Moon, although a visually blue Moon (the Moon ...

", set to be ready by 2024. On July 20, 2021, Blue Origin sent its first crewed mission into space via its New Shepard rocket and spaceflight system. The flight was approximately 10 minutes, and crossed the Kármán line. Bezos was part of the four member crew along with his brother Mark Bezos,

Wally Funk Mary Wallace Funk (born February 1, 1939) is an American aviator, commercial astronaut, and Goodwill Ambassador. She was the first female air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, the first female civilian flight i ...

, and Oliver Daemen.

History

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has been interested in space from an early age. A profile published in 2013 described a 1982 ''

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami. In 1999, after watching the rocketry biopic film '' October Sky'', Bezos discussed forming a space company with science-fiction author

Neal Stephenson Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work e ...

. Blue Origin was founded in 2000 in Kent, Washington, and began developing both rocket propulsion systems and

s. Since the founding, the company was quite secretive about its plans and emerged from its "self-imposed silence" only after 2015. The company was incorporated in 2000 and in 2003, Bezos began buying land in Texas, at which point interested parties followed up on the purchases. This was a topic of some interest in local politics, and Bezos' rapid aggregation of land under a variety of whimsically named

shell companies A shell corporation is a company or corporation that exists only on paper and has no office and no employees, but may have a bank account or may hold passive investments or be the registered owner of assets, such as intellectual property, or ...

was called a "land grab". Rob Meyerson joined Blue Origin in 2003 and served as the company's long-time president. Meyerson led the growth of the company from 10 to 1500 people before leaving in late 2018. As early as 2005, Bezos had discussed plans to create a vertical-takeoff and landing spaceship called New Shepard. Plans for New Shepard were initially kept quiet, but Blue Origin's website indicated Bezos' desire to, "lower the cost of spaceflight so that we humans can better continue exploring the Solar System." By 2008, a publicized timetable for New Shepard indicated that Blue Origin intended to fly

uncrewed An uncrewed vehicle or unmanned vehicle is a vehicle without a person on board. Uncrewed vehicles can either be under telerobotic control—remote controlled or remote guided vehicles—or they can be autonomously controlled—autonomous vehicl ...

in 2011, and crewed in 2012. In a 2011 interview, Bezos indicated that he founded Blue Origin to send customers into

by focusing on two objectives: to decrease the cost and to increase the safety of human spaceflight. By late 2016, Blue Origin was projecting that if all New Shepard test flights operated as scheduled, they could begin flying passengers to space on the ''New Shepard'' in 2018. In July 2013, the company employed approximately 250 people. By May 2015, the company had grown to approximately 400 employees, with 350 of those working on engineering, manufacturing and business operations in the Kent location and approximately 50 in Texas supporting the engine-test and suborbital test-flight facility. More rapid growth began in 2016. By April 2017, the company had more than 1000 employees. In August 2018, the company was more than 1500 employees, more than double the number in early 2016, and stated that they expected that "to double again by the time New Glenn is flying." But Blue had more than 2000 employees by April 2019 – two years before New Glenn's anticipated first flight – with plans to have more than 2600 by the end of 2019.Replay of NS-11 Webcast
, at 13:03, Blue Origin, via YouTube, May 2, 2019, accessed May 5, 2019. By July 2014, Bezos had invested over of his own money into Blue Origin. As of 2016, Blue Origin was spending a year, funded by Jeff Bezos' sales of Amazon stock. In both 2017, and again in 2018, Bezos made public statements that he intends to fund Blue Origin with per year from sales of his equity in Amazon.Jeff Bezos reveals what it's like to build an empire and become the richest man in the world – and why he's willing to spend $1 billion a year to fund the most important mission of his life
, Business Insider, April 28, 2018, accessed May 1, 2018. The first developmental test flight of the ''New Shepard'' occurred on April 29, 2015. The uncrewed vehicle flew to its planned test altitude of more than and achieved a top speed of Mach 3. In July 2015, NanoRacks, a provider of services such as payload design and development, safety approvals, and integration, announced a partnership with Blue Origin to provide standardized payload accommodations for experiments flying on Blue Origin's ''New Shepard'' suborbital vehicle. In September 2014, the company and

(ULA) entered into a partnership whereby Blue Origin would produce a large rocket engine – the

– for the Vulcan, the successor to the

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Mart ...

which has launched US national security payloads since the early 2000s, and was then scheduled to exit service in the late 2010s. The 2014 announcement added that Blue Origin had been working on the engine for three years prior to the public announcement, and that the first flight on the new rocket could occur as early as 2019. In actuality, Atlas V is still flying in 2020. By April 2017, development and test of the BE-4 were progressing well and Blue Origin was expected to be selected for the ULA Vulcan rocket. In April 2015, Blue Origin announced that it had completed acceptance testing of the BE-3 rocket engine that would power the New Shepard

to be used for Blue Origin

flights. On November 23, 2015, Blue Origin launched the New Shepard rocket to space for a second time to an altitude of , and vertically landed the rocket booster less than from the center of the pad. The capsule descended to the ground under parachutes 11 minutes after blasting off and landed safely. This was the first time a suborbital booster had flown to space and returned to Earth. This flight validated the vehicle architecture and design. The ring fin shifted the center of pressure aft to help control reentry and descent; eight large drag brakes deployed and reduced the vehicle's terminal speed to ; hydraulically actuated fins steered the vehicle through high-altitude crosswinds to a location precisely aligned with and above the landing pad; then the highly throttleable BE-3 engine re-ignited to slow the booster as the landing gear deployed, and the vehicle descended the last at to touchdown on the pad. On January 22, 2016, Blue Origin re-flew the same New Shepard booster that launched and landed vertically in November 2015, demonstrating reuse. This time, New Shepard reached an apogee of before both capsule and booster returned to Earth for recovery and reuse. In April 2016, the same New Shepard booster again flew, now for a third time, reaching , before again returning and landing successfully. In September 2015, Blue Origin announced details of an unnamed planned orbital launch vehicle, indicating that the first stage would be powered by its

rocket engine currently under development, while the second stage would be powered by its recently completed BE-3 rocket engine. In addition, Blue Origin announced that it would both manufacture and launch the new rocket from the Florida Space Coast. No payload or gross launch weight was given. Bezos noted in interviews that this new launch vehicle would not compete for US government

national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military att ...

missions, leaving that market to

and

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal o ...

. Science-fiction author

worked part-time at Blue Origin into late 2006 and credited the company's employees for ideas and discussions leading to his 2015 novel, Seveneves. In March 2016, Blue Origin invited journalists to see the inside of its Kent, Washington headquarters and manufacturing facility for the first time. The company was planning for substantial growth in 2016 as it planned to build more crew capsules and propulsion modules for the New Shepard program and ramp up BE-4 engine builds to support full-scale development testing. Blue indicated that employment was expected to grow to 1,000 in 2016 from 600 in February 2016. Bezos also articulated a long-term vision for humans in space, seeing the potential to move much heavy industry completely off-Earth, "leaving our planet zoned strictly for 'residential and light industrial' use with an end state hundreds of years out "where millions of people would be living and working in space." In March 2016, test flights carrying human occupants were said by the company to be possible as early as 2017, potentially with commercial service in 2018. The newly disclosed orbital rocket – which would subsequently be named New Glenn – was planned to fly its initial flight in 2020. Also in March 2016, Bezos discussed his plans to offer

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

services to space. Pointing out the "entertainment" aspect of the early " barnstormers" in really advancing aviation in the early days when such rides "were a big fraction of airplane flights in those early days," he sees space tourism playing a similar role: advancing "space travel and rocket launches, through tourism and entertainment." On the other hand, there were no current plans to pursue the niche market of US military launches; Bezos said he is unsure where Blue Origin would add any value in that market. This would later change. In September 2016, Blue announced that its orbital rocket would be named New Glenn in honor of the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth,

John Glenn John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space, and the first American to orbit the Earth, circling ...

, and that the first stage will be powered by seven Blue Origin

engines. The first stage is reusable and will land vertically, just like the New Shepard

launch vehicle that preceded it. In March 2017, Bezos announced that Blue Origin had acquired its first paying launch customer for orbital satellite launches.

Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it is the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Eutelsat's satellite ...

was expected to start launching TV satellites in 2022 on Blue Origin's

orbital launch vehicle. A day after announcing Eutelsat, Blue Origin introduced OneWeb as its second customer. In September 2017, Blue Origin closed a deal for New Glenn with its first Asian customer, Mu Space. The company, based in Thailand, plans to provide satellite-based broadband services and space travel in Asia-Pacific. In December 2017, Blue Origin launched a test experiment on New Shepard with a technology that could one day treat chest trauma in a space environment. In June 2018, Blue Origin indicated that while it continued to plan to fly initial internal passengers later in 2018, it would not be selling commercial tickets for New Shepard until 2019. In May 2019 Blue Origin announced the ''Blue Moon''

lander Lander may refer to: Media and entertainment * ''Lander'' (computer game), computer game published by Psygnosis in 1999 * ''Lander'' (game demo), the 3D game demo provided with the Acorn Archimedes computer * Lander (Transformers), a fiction ...

design concept, expected to fly on the New Glenn launch vehicle and be ready to make a soft landing on the Moon as early as 2024. They also announced the BE-7 engine. The lander, part of Blue Origin's entry in NASA's Human Landing System competition, is slated to be able to be built in two versions, and transport . Despite publicly announced plans to fly passengers on New Shepard in 2018 and begin commercial flights in 2019, as of March 2021, Blue Origin had yet to fly commercial passengers (or indeed, any passengers) on the suborbital rocket. On December 11, 2019, the company completed its twelfth test flight of the rocket. In early 2021, Blue announced a revised schedule estimate for the first launch of New Glenn. While initially planned to fly as early as 2020 the company announced in March 2021 that New Glenn "would not launch until the fourth quarter of 2022, at the earliest." In June 2021, Blue Origin auctioned off a seat on the company's debut private astronaut mission for $28 million; however, the winner of the auction did not take part in the flight due to a scheduling conflict. The winner remained initially anonymous but later revealed himself as Justin Sun. The launch took place on July 20, 2021, with Oliver Daemen flying in the seat that Mr. Sun had won in the auction. In August 2021, Blue Origin began a lawsuit against the United States federal government over its failed bid on the Human Landing System contract, which included the Blue Moon lander. Blue Origin claims NASA unlawfully and improperly evaluated the proposals. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigated the allegations and sided with NASA. Blue Origin's lawsuit is causing delays to the Artemis program and NASA's planned moon landing. In October 2021,

William Shatner William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor. In a career spanning seven decades, he is best known for his portrayal of James T. Kirk in the ''Star Trek'' franchise, from his 1965 debut as the captain of the starship ''Enterpris ...

(age 90), the actor who played

Captain Kirk James Tiberius Kirk is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. Originally played by Canadian actor William Shatner, Kirk first appeared in ''Star Trek'' serving aboard the starship USS ''Enterprise'' as captain. Kirk leads ...

on the Original Star Trek series, boarded a Blue Origin sub-orbital capsule and successfully flew to space becoming the oldest person to fly to space. The third crewed mission of New Shepard launched 11 December 2021. The fourth crewed mission of New Shepard launched 31 March 2022. On 4 June 2022, New Shepard completed its fifth crewed mission launch after the delayed voyage previous month. The sixth crewed flight took place 4 August 2022.

Vehicles and Projects

Test Vehicles

''Charon''

Blue Origin's first flight test vehicle, called ''

Charon In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (; grc, Χάρων) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of Hades, the Greek underworld. He carries the souls of those who have been given funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, which separate the ...

'' after

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...

's moon, was powered by four vertically mounted Rolls-Royce Viper Mk. 301 jet engines rather than rockets. The low-altitude vehicle was developed to test autonomous guidance and control technologies, and the processes that the company would use to develop its later rockets. ''Charon'' made its only test flight at Moses Lake, Washington on March 5, 2005. It flew to an altitude of before returning for a controlled landing near the liftoff point. As of 2016, Charon is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

Goddard

The next test vehicle, named '' Goddard'' (also known as PM1), first flew on November 13, 2006. The flight was successful. A test flight for December 2 never launched. According to

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

records, two further flights were performed by Goddard.

PM2

Another early suborbital test vehicle, PM2, had two flight tests in 2011 in west Texas. The vehicle designation may be short for "Propulsion Module". The first flight was a short hop (low altitude, VTVL takeoff and landing mission) flown on 6 May 2011. The second flight, August 24 2011, failed when ground personnel lost contact and control of the vehicle. Blue Origin released its analysis of the failure nine days later. As the vehicle reached a speed of Mach 1.2 and altitude, a "flight instability drove an

angle of attack In fluid dynamics, angle of attack (AOA, α, or \alpha) is the angle between a reference line on a body (often the chord line of an airfoil) and the vector representing the relative motion between the body and the fluid through which it is m ...

that triggered he range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle".

New Shepard

Blue Origin's New Shepard

spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in ...

system is composed of two vehicles: a crew capsule accommodating three or more astronauts launched by a rocket booster. The two vehicles lift off together and are designed to separate during flight. After separation, the booster is designed to return to Earth to perform a vertical landing while the crew capsule follows a separate trajectory, returning under parachutes for a land touchdown. Both vehicles are intended for recovery and re-use. ''New Shepard'' is controlled entirely by on-board computers. In addition to flying astronauts, New Shepard is intended to provide frequent opportunities for researchers to fly experiments into suborbital space. In October 2012, Blue Origin conducted a successful New Shepard pad escape test at its West Texas launch site, firing its pusher escape motor and launching a full-scale crew capsule from a launch vehicle simulator. The crew capsule traveled to an altitude of under active thrust vector control before descending safely by parachute to a soft landing downrange. In April 2015, Blue Origin announced its intent to begin autonomous test flights of New Shepard in 2015 as frequently as monthly. Blue Origin expected "a series of dozens of flights over the extent of the test program akinga couple of years to complete". New Shepard made its first test flight on April 29, 2015. The uncrewed vehicle flew to its planned test altitude of more than and achieved a top speed of Mach 3. The crew capsule separated from the booster before returning to Earth and landing under parachutes. The booster experienced a hydraulic failure that prevented it from landing and was destroyed on impact. On November 23, 2015, New Shepard made its second test flight, reaching altitude with a successful vertical landing and recovery of the booster, the first time a booster stage that had been to

had ever done so. The crew capsule was also successfully recovered via parachute return, as Blue had done before. On January 22, 2016, Blue Origin re-flew the same New Shepard booster that launched and landed vertically in November 2015, demonstrating reuse. This time, New Shepard reached an apogee of before both capsule and booster again successfully returned to Earth with a soft landing for recovery and reuse. Additional flights of New Shepard propulsion module 2 (NS2) were flown on April 2, 2016, reaching , and on June 19, 2016, for a fourth time, again reaching over , before again returning and landing successfully. A fifth and final test flight of NS2 took place in October 2016 before NS2 was retired. The first flight of the third booster took place in December 2017. The seventh test launch of New Shepard NS3 on October 13, 2020, successfully reached a maximum altitude of 105 km (346,000 ft). On January 14, 2021, New Shepard successfully performed the first test flight of the New Shepard 4 (NS4), the fourth propulsion module to be built. It reached a maximum altitude of almost 107 km (350,827 ft). On April 14, 2021, New Shepard successfully performed a landing with the reused rocket from the last flight. On July 20, 2021, New Shepard carried its first four passengers to suborbital space. The passengers were

, his brother Mark Bezos,

, and Oliver Daemen, after the unnamed auction winner (later revealed to have been Justin Sun) dropped out due to a scheduling conflict. The second and third crewed missions of New Shepard took place in October and December 2021, respectively. Fourth crewed flight happened in March 2022. On 4 June 2022, New Shepard completed its fifth crewed mission launch after the delayed voyage previous month. The sixth crewed flight took place on 4 August 2022.

New Glenn

New Glenn is a -diameter two-stage orbital

that is expected to launch no earlier than Q4 2023. The design work on the vehicle began in 2012. The high-level specifications for the vehicle were publicly announced in September 2016. The first stage will be powered by seven

engines, also designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. The first stage is reusable, just like the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it. The second stage is intended to be expendable. Blue Origin intends to launch the rocket from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36, and manufacture the rockets at a new facility on nearby land in Exploration Park. Acceptance testing of the BE-4 engines will also be done in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

.Jeff Bezos plans to boost humans into space from Cape Canaveral
, ''CBS News'', accessed September 17, 2015. Bezos: "''You cannot afford to be a space-fairing civilization if you throw the rocket away every time you use it... We have to be focused on reusability, we have to be focused on lowering the cost of space''".

Orbital subsystems and earlier development work

Blue Origin began developing systems for orbital human

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, ...

prior to 2012. A reusable first-stage booster was projected to fly a suborbital trajectory, taking off vertically like the booster stage of a conventional multistage rocket. Following stage separation, the upper stage would continue to propel astronauts to orbit while the first-stage booster would descend to perform a powered vertical landing similar to the New Shepard

Propulsion Module. The first-stage booster would be refueled and launched again, allowing improved reliability and lowering the cost of human access to space. The booster rocket was projected to loft Blue Origin's biconic Space Vehicle to orbit, carrying astronauts and supplies. After orbiting the Earth, the Space Vehicle will reenter Earth's atmosphere to land on land under parachutes, and then be reused on future missions to Earth orbit. Blue Origin successfully completed a System Requirements Review (SRR) of its orbital Space Vehicle in May 2012. Engine testing for the Reusable Booster System (RBS) vehicle began in 2012. A full-power test of the thrust chamber for Blue Origin BE-3

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an app ...

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen (LH2 or LH2) is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point of 33 K. However, for it to be in a fully l ...

was conducted at a NASA test facility in October 2012. The chamber successfully achieved full thrust of .

New Armstrong

At the time of the announcement of

in 2016,

revealed that the next project after

would be called New Armstrong, without detailing what that would be. Media have speculated that New Armstrong would be a launch vehicle named after

Neil Armstrong Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. ...

, the first man to walk on the Moon.

''Blue Moon''

The ''

'' lander is a crew-carrying

lunar lander A lunar lander or Moon lander is a spacecraft designed to land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2021, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing six lunar landings from 1969 to 19 ...

unveiled in 2019. The standard version of the lander is intended to

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...

to the lunar surface whereas a "stretched tank variant" could land up to on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

, both making a soft landing. The lander will use the BE-7 hydrolox engine.

Project Jarvis

Information became public in July 2021 that in recent months Blue Origin had begun a "project to develop a fully reusable upper stage for New Glenn." A principal goal of the project is to reduce the overall launch cost of

by gaining an operational capacity to reuse second stages, just as

is aiming to do with their

Starship second stage Starship is a fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX, an American aerospace company. With more than twice the thrust of the Saturn V, it is designed to be the most powerful launch vehicle ever built and th ...

by building a fully-reusable orbital launch vehicle. Jarvis is focusing on developing a

stainless steel Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's r ...

propellant tank structure for the second stage rocket, and evaluating it as a part of a solution for a complete second stage system. If Blue Origin is able to realize such a second stage design, and bring it into operational use, it would substantially bring down the cost of launches of the

system. Beyond the technical changes indicated, CEO Bezos has created a new management structure for Project Jarvis, walling off "parts of the second-stage development program from the rest of Blue Origin ellingits leaders to innovate in an environment unfettered by rigorous management and paperwork processes." No budget nor timetable has been publicly released. On 24 August 2021, Blue Origin had rolled a

test tank to their

Launch Complex 36 Launch Complex 36 (LC-36)—formerly known as Space Launch Complex 36 (SLC-36) from 1997 to 2010—is a launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Brevard County, Florida. It was used for Atlas launches by NASA and the U.S. Air Forc ...

facility. Ground

pressure Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country a ...

testing was expected to begin as early as September 2021, but this has not happened yet.

Orbital Reef

On October 25, 2021, Blue Origin announced that together with Sierra Space it would build a "Mixed-use space business park" in LEO called Orbital Reef, to "open multiple new markets in space, ndprovide anyone with the opportunity to establish their own address on orbit." It "will offer research, industrial, international, and commercial customers the cost competitive end-to-end services they need including space transportation and logistics, space habitation, equipment accommodation, and operations including onboard crew. The station will start operating in the second half of this decade." Further partners are

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...

, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

Rocket engines

Following Aerojet's acquisition of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in 2012, Blue Origin president Rob Meyerson saw an opportunity to fill a gap in the defense industrial base. Blue Origin publicly entered the

liquid A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, ...

business by partnering with ULA on the development of the

, and working with other companies. Meyerson announced the selection of

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in ...

as the location of Blue Origin's rocket production factory in June 2017.

BE-1

Blue Engine 1, or BE-1, was the first rocket engine developed by Blue Origin and was used on the company's Goddard development vehicle. The pressure-fed monopropellant engine was powered by

peroxide In chemistry, peroxides are a group of compounds with the structure , where R = any element. The group in a peroxide is called the peroxide group or peroxo group. The nomenclature is somewhat variable. The most common peroxide is hydrogen p ...

and produced of thrust.

BE-2

Blue Engine 2, or BE-2, was a pump-fed bipropellant engine burning

kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning " wax", and was re ...

and

which produced of thrust. Five BE-2 engines powered Blue Origin's PM-2 development vehicle on two test flights in 2011.

BE-3

Blue Origin publicly announced the development of the Blue Engine 3, or BE-3, in January 2013, but the engine had begun development in the early 2010s. BE-3 is a new

(LH2/LOX) cryogenic engine that can produce of thrust at full power, and can be throttled down to as low as for use in controlled vertical landings. Early thrust chamber testing began at NASA Stennis in 2013. By late 2013, the BE-3 had been successfully tested on a full-duration suborbital burn, with simulated coast phases and engine relights, "demonstrating deep throttle, full power, long-duration and reliable restart all in a single-test sequence." NASA has released a video of the test. , the engine had demonstrated more than 160 starts and of operation at Blue Origin's test facility near Van Horn, Texas. BE-3 engine acceptance testing was completed by April 2015 with 450 test firings of the engine and a cumulative run time of more than . The BE-3 engine powers the New Shepard

that is being used for Blue Origin

flights that began in 2015.

BE-3U

The BE-3U engine is a modified BE-3 for use on upper stages of Blue Origin orbital

s. The engine will include a nozzle better optimized for operation under

vacuum A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective ''vacuus'' for "vacant" or " void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often ...

conditions as well as a number of other manufacturing differences since it is an expendable engine whereas the BE-3 is designed for reusability.

BE-4

Blue Origin began work on a new and much larger rocket engine in 2011. The new engine, the ''Blue Engine 4'', or ''BE-4'', is a change for Blue Origin in that it is their first engine that will combust

and liquid methane propellants. The engine has been designed to produce of thrust, and was initially planned to be used exclusively on a Blue Origin proprietary launch vehicle. Blue Origin did not announce the new engine to the public until September 2014. In late 2014, Blue Origin signed an agreement with

(ULA) to co-develop the BE-4 engine, and to commit to use the new engine on an upgraded

launch vehicle, replacing the single

RD-180 The RD-180 ( rus, РД-180, Ракетный Двигатель-180, Raketnyy Dvigatel-180) is a rocket engine designed and built in Russia. It features a dual combustion chamber, dual- nozzle design and is fueled by a RP-1/ LOX mixture. The RD ...

Russian-made engine. The new launch vehicle will use two of the BE-4 engines on each first stage. The engine development program began in 2011. When announced in 2014, and still in March 2016, and then in November 2019 ULA expected the first flight of the new launch vehicle – the Vulcan – no earlier than July 2021.Wall, Mike
"SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Will Launch Private Moon Lander in 2021"
. ''Space.com''. October 2, 2019. Quote: "But Peregrine will fly on a different rocket, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur, which is still in development. The 2021 Peregrine mission will be the first for both the lander and its launch vehicle". , Blue Origin intended to complete engine qualification testing by late 2018. In the event, by August 2021 it had become clear, and publicly so, that the engine program is in trouble, and qualification testing was still not yet complete. The first flight test of the new engine is now expected no earlier than 2022 on the Vulcan rocket, and much later on Blue's own New Glenn. The engine is running four years behind schedule, and Blue has experienced a variety of problems, both technical and managerial. Flight engines will not be delivered to ULA before late 2021, and perhaps not until early 2022. Moreover, the business relationship with ULA has deteriorated, in part because Blue tried to renegotiate for a higher price for the BE-4 engines in 2017 than had been agreed to in 2014. On October 31st, 2022, a Twitter post by the official Blue Origin account announced that the first two BE-4 engines had been delivered to ULA and were in the process of being integrated on a Vulcan rocket. In a later tweet, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said that one of the engines had already been installed on the booster, and that the other would be joining it momentarily.

BE-7

The BE-7 engine, currently under development, is being designed for use on a lunar lander. Its first ignition tests were performed June 2019. The BE-7 is designed to produce 40 kN (10,000 lbf) of thrust and have a deep throttle range, making it less powerful than the other engines Blue Origin has in development/production, but this low thrust is advantageous for its intended purpose as a Lunar vehicle descent stage main propulsion system as it offers greater control for soft landings. The engine uses

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-to ...

and

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements ...

propellant A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or other motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the ...

s in a dual-expander combustion cycle, similar to the more typical

expander cycle The expander cycle is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. In this cycle, the fuel is used to cool the engine's combustion chamber, picking up heat and changing phase. The now heated and gaseous fuel then powers the turbine that drives ...

used by the RL-10 and others, which in theory offers better performance and allows each pump to run at independent flow rates. Blue Origin plans to use additive manufacturing technology to produce the combustion chamber of the engine, which would allow them to more cheaply construct the complex cooling channels required to keep the engine from melting and to produce the hot gasses that will power the pumps.

Pusher escape motor

Blue Origin partnered with Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop a pusher

launch escape system A launch escape system (LES) or launch abort system (LAS) is a crew-safety system connected to a space capsule that can be used to quickly separate the capsule from its launch vehicle in case of an emergency requiring the abort of the launch, s ...

for the New Shepard suborbital Crew Capsule. Aerojet Rocketdyne provides the Crew Capsule Escape Solid Rocket Motor (CCE SRM) while the thrust vector control system that steers the capsule during an abort is designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. In late 2012, Blue Origin performed a

pad abort test A pad abort test is a kind of test of a launch escape system which conducted by setting the system along with the spacecraft still on the ground and let the system activate to carry the spacecraft flying away, then separate in the air and make the s ...

of the escape system on a full-scale

capsule. Four years later in 2016, the escape system was successfully tested in-flight at the point of highest dynamic pressure as the vehicle reached

transonic Transonic (or transsonic) flow is air flowing around an object at a speed that generates regions of both subsonic and supersonic airflow around that object. The exact range of speeds depends on the object's critical Mach number, but transoni ...

velocity.

Facilities

BlueOrigin OLS mfg building, Florida (from north)

Blue Origin has a development facility near

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, a facility in

Reston, Virginia Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia and a principal city of the Washington metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Reston's population was 63,226. Founded in 1964, Reston was influenced by the Garden City move ...

and a privately owned spaceport in

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio. No consensus exists on the boundary betw ...

. Blue Origin's Reston office hosts the company's “Center of Excellence” in addition to their “Advanced Development Program, New Glenn launch system, new space infrastructure product development, and the company’s Enterprise Technology team”. Blue Origin has continued to expand its Seattle-area office and rocket production facilities in 2016 – purchasing an adjacent -building – and 2017, with permits filed to build a new warehouse complex and an additional of office space. The company's established a new headquarters and R&D facility, dubbed the O’Neill Building, in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, on June 6, 2020. Blue Origin manufactures rocket engines, launch vehicles, and

s in

. Its largest engine

will be produced at a new manufacturing facility in

, which was first announced in 2017 and opened in February 2020. In 2017, Blue Origin established a manufacturing facility for launch vehicles in

near where they will launch

from the

Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the stati ...

, after initiating design and construction in 2015. The west Texas suborbital launch site is at 31°25'22.6"N 104°45'25.6"W (31.422949, -104.757120), about 20 miles north of Van Horn, Texas. At

, from 2016, Blue Origin have been converting

(LC-36) to launch

to orbit.Blue Origin's Rocket Factory Breaks Ground, June 2016
accessed Feb 2022

Flights

Funding

By July 2014, Jeff Bezos had invested over into Blue Origin. and the vast majority of further funding into 2016 was to support

technology development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving exist ...

and operations at Blue Origin came from Jeff Bezos' private investment, but Bezos declined to publicly state the amount prior to April 2017 when an annual amount was published showing that Bezos was selling approximately in

stock each year for

investment Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing is ...

in Blue Origin. Bezos received criticism for spending so much of his vast wealth to fund Blue Origin and his personal flight into space instead of addressing the needs of people on Earth. Bezos said his critics were "largely right" and: "We have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those. And we always need to look to the future. We've always done that as a species, as a civilization. We have to do both." As of October 2018, Blue Origin received at least $181 million from the United States Air Force for launch vehicle development. Blue Origin also completed work for NASA on several small development contracts, receiving total funding of by 2013. Blue Origins was also eligible to benefit from further grants raising this to as part of the Launch Services Agreement competition, However, after the company failed to secure a National Security Space Launch procurement contract, on December 31, 2020 the U.S. Space Force officially terminated launch technology partnerships with Blue Origin.

Collaborations

With NASA

Blue Origin has contracted to do work for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

on several development efforts. The company was awarded in funding in 2009 by NASA via a

Space Act Agreement Space Act Agreements (abbreviated SAA) are a type of legal agreement specified in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (and subsequent congressional authorizations) that uniquely empowers the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ...

under the first Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program for development of concepts and technologies to support future human spaceflight operations. NASA co-funded risk-mitigation activities related to ground testing of (1) an innovative 'pusher' escape system, that lowers cost by being reusable and enhances safety by avoiding the jettison event of a traditional 'tractor' Launch Escape System, and (2) an innovative composite pressure vessel cabin that both reduces weight and increases safety of astronauts. This was later revealed to be a part of a larger system, designed for a biconic capsule, that would be launched atop an

rocket. On November 8, 2010, it was announced that Blue Origin had completed all milestones under its CCDev Space Act Agreement. In April 2011, Blue Origin received a commitment from

for of funding under the CCDev phase 2 program. Milestones included (1) performing a Mission Concept Review (MCR) and System Requirements Review (SRR) on the orbital Space Vehicle, which utilizes a biconic shape to optimize its launch profile and atmospheric reentry, (2) further maturing the pusher escape system, including ground and flight tests, and (3) accelerating development of its BE-3 LOX/LH2 engine through full-scale thrust chamber testing. In 2012,

's Commercial Crew Program released its follow-on CCiCap solicitation for the development of crew delivery to ISS by 2017. Blue Origin did not submit a proposal for CCiCap, but is reportedly continuing work on its development program with private funding. Blue Origin had a failed attempt to lease a different part of the Space Coast, when they submitted a bid in 2013 to lease Launch Complex 39A (LC39A) at the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 196 ...

– on land to the north of, and adjacent to,

Cape Canaveral AFS Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the statio ...

– following NASA's decision to lease the unused complex out as part of a bid to reduce annual operation and maintenance costs. The Blue Origin bid was for shared and non-exclusive use of the LC39A complex such that the launchpad was to have been able to interface with multiple

vehicles A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), ...

, and costs for using the launch pad were to have been shared across multiple companies over the term of the lease. One potential shared user in the Blue Origin notional plan was

. Commercial use of the LC39A launch complex was awarded to

, which submitted a bid for exclusive use of the launch complex to support their crewed missions. In September 2013 – before completion of the bid period, and before any public announcement by NASA of the results of the process – Florida Today reported that Blue Origin had filed a protest with the U.S.

General Accounting Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal gover ...

(GAO) "over what it says is a plan by NASA to award an exclusive commercial lease to

for use of mothballed space shuttle launch pad 39A".

had originally planned to complete the bid award and have the pad transferred by October 1, 2013, but the protest delayed a decision until the GAO reached a decision on the protest. SpaceX said that they would be willing to support a multi-user arrangement for pad 39A. In December 2013, the GAO denied the Blue Origin protest and sided with NASA, which argued that the solicitation contained no preference on the use of the facility as either multi-use or single-use. "The olicitationdocument merely skedbidders to explain their reasons for selecting one approach instead of the other and how they would manage the facility". NASA selected the SpaceX proposal in late 2013 and signed a 20-year lease contract for Launch Pad 39A to SpaceX in April 2014. On April 30, 2020, Blue Origin's National Team, which includes

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tech ...

, and Draper, was awarded $579 million to develop an integrated human landing system as part of NASA's Artemis program to return humans to the

. On April 16, 2021, NASA awarded the Artemis moon lander work, in full, to the rival SpaceX bid. On April 26, 2021, Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office, citing NASA's failure "... to allow offerors to meaningfully compete for an award when the Agency's requirements changed due to its undisclosed, perceived shortfall of funding ...", as well as the Agency's performance of a "... flawed competitive acquisition in contravention of BAA rules and requirements". On July 30, 2021, the GAO denied Blue Origin's protest.

With ULA

In September 2018, it was announced that Blue Origin's BE-4 engine had been selected by

to provide first-stage rocket engines for ULA's next-generation booster design, the Vulcan rocket. The BE-4 engine is set to replace the Russian-built

currently powering ULA's

With military agencies

Blue Origin cooperated with

in Phase 1 of the

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the A ...

XS-1 spaceplane program. Blue Origin was reportedly in contracting talks with the

United States Space Force The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and the world's only independent space force. Along with its sister branch, the U.S. Air Force, the Space ...

as well according to Lt. General David Thompson. However, such talks ceased as of December 31, 2020.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 47, 24, 37, N, 122, 14, 15, W, scale:10000, display=title 2000 establishments in Washington (state) Aerospace companies of the United States American companies established in 2000 Collier Trophy recipients Companies based in Kent, Washington Culberson County, Texas Privately held companies based in Washington (state) Private spaceflight companies Space Act Agreement companies Space tourism Technology companies established in 2000