Blue Origin Enterprises, L.P. is an American

space technology Space technology is technology for use in outer space. Space technology includes space vehicles such as spacecraft, satellites, space stations and orbital spaceflight, orbital launch vehicles; :Spacecraft communication, deep-space communication; :S ...

company headquartered in

Kent, Washington Kent is a city in King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. It is part of the Seattle metropolitan area, Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue metropolitan area and had a population of 136,588 as of the 2020 Unit ...

. The company operates the suborbital

New Shepard New Shepard is a Reusable launch vehicle, fully reusable Sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism by Blue Origin. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, who became the List of space travelers by nationali ...

rocket and the heavy-lift

New Glenn New Glenn is a heavy-lift launch vehicle developed and operated by the American company Blue Origin. The rocket is designed to have a Reusable launch vehicle, partially reusable, two-stage design with a diameter of . The first stage is powered ...

rocket. In addition to producing engines for its own rockets, Blue Origin supplies engines for other vehicles, including United Launch Alliance's

Vulcan Centaur Vulcan Centaur is a heavy-lift launch vehicle developed and operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA). It is a two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle consisting of the Vulcan first stage and the Centaur second stage. Replacing ULA's Atlas V and Del ...

. It is also working on the

Blue Moon A blue moon refers either to the presence of a second full moon in a calendar month, to the third full moon in a season containing four, or to a moon that appears blue due to atmospheric effects. The calendrical meaning of "blue moon" is unc ...

human lunar lander for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Artemis program The Artemis program is a Exploration of the Moon, Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1. The program's stated long-ter ...

, the

Blue Ring Blue Ring is a spacecraft platform designed to support spacecraft operation, under development by Blue Origin. The platform is to be capable of refueling, transporting, and hosting satellites. A prototype was launched on New Glenn's inaugural ...

spacecraft platform, and the

Orbital Reef Orbital Reef is a low Earth orbit (LEO) space station under development. It is designed by Blue Origin and Sierra Space for Commercial astronaut, commercial space activities and space tourism uses. Blue Origin has referred to it as a "mixed-us ...

space station in partnership with other organizations. Founded in 2000 by

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ; born January 12, 1964) is an American businessman best known as the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and clou ...

, Blue Origin initially operated with a very low profile, funded by Bezos's private investments. In 2015, the company achieved a significant milestone with the first uncrewed launch and landing of the New Shepard and announced plans for New Glenn. In 2021, New Shepard completed its first crewed mission with Bezos himself on board, crossing the

Kármán line The Kármán line (or von Kármán line ) is a conventional definition of the Outer space#Boundary, edge of space; it is widely but not universally accepted. The international record-keeping body Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, FAI ( ...

, the conventional definition of the edge of space, above sea level. Another key achievement came in January 2023 when the company delivered its first

BE-4 The BE-4 (Blue Engine 4) is a liquid rocket engine developed by Blue Origin. It uses an oxygen-rich, liquefied natural gas, liquefied methane fuel and operates on a staged combustion cycle. The BE-4 produces of thrust at sea level. Developmen ...

rocket engine to United Launch Alliance. Despite these milestones, Blue Origin has faced criticism for its perceived slow progress, particularly when compared to

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

. Addressing these challenges, the company underwent a leadership change in September 2023, appointing

Dave Limp Dave Limp (born 1966) is an American businessman and corporate executive who is the sitting CEO of Blue Origin as of 2024. Prior to joining Blue Origin, Limp held various executive roles at Amazon (company), Amazon SVP and Apple Inc., Apple. ...

as CEO to succeed Bob Smith. On January 16, 2025, Blue Origin reached orbit with the first launch of the New Glenn vehicle. On April 14, 2025, Blue Origin completed its 11th human spaceflight and its 31st spaceflight for the New Shepard Program with an all-female crew of six.

History

The company was founded in 2000 by

, the founder of

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

Rob Meyerson Robert E. "Rob" Meyerson is an American aerospace engineer and executive. Meyerson is the co-founder and CEO of Interlune, a natural resources company focused on harvesting resources from the Moon. Interlune came out of stealth mode in March 20 ...

joined the company in 2003 and served as the CEO before leaving the company in 2018. Bob Smith served as CEO from 2018 to 2023. The current CEO is Dave Limp. Little is known about the company's activities in its early years. In 2006, the company purchased land for its

missions 30 miles north of

Van Horn, Texas Van Horn is a town in and the county seat of Culberson County, Texas, United States. According to the 2010 census, Van Horn had a population of 2,063, down from 2,435 at the 2000 census. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census results detailed ...

, United States called Launch Site One (LS1). In November 2006, the first test vehicle was launched, the Goddard rocket, which reached an altitude of 285 feet. After initiating the development of an orbital rocket system prior to 2012, and stating in 2013 on their website that the first stage would perform a powered vertical landing and be reusable, the company publicly announced their orbital

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

intentions in September 2015. In January 2016, the company indicated that the new rocket would be many times larger than

. The company publicly released the high-level design of the vehicle and announced its name in September 2016 as "

". The

heavy-lift launch vehicle A heavy-lift launch vehicle (HLV) is an orbital launch vehicle capable of lifting payloads between (by NASA classification) or between (by Russian classification) into low Earth orbit (LEO).50t payloads" Heavy-lift launch vehicles often carry ...

can be configured in both

two-stage A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of another stage; a ''parallel'' stage is ...

and three-stage variants.

first successfully launched in January, 2025. On July 20, 2021,

performed its first crewed mission to sub-orbital space called

Blue Origin NS-16 Blue Origin NS-16 was a sub-orbital spaceflight mission operated by Blue Origin which flew on 20 July 2021. The mission was the sixteenth flight of the company's New Shepard integrated launch vehicle and spacecraft, and its first flight with h ...

. The flight lasted approximately 10 minutes and crossed the

. The passengers were

, his brother

Mark Bezos Marcus Jim Bezos ( ; born ) is an American space tourist and former advertising executive. He is the half-brother of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, with whom he flew to the edge of space as part of the Blue Origin NS-16 mission on July 20 ...

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 ...

, and

Oliver Daemen Oliver Daemen (born 20 August 2002) is a Dutch space tourist who flew as part of the 20 July 2021, sub-orbital Blue Origin NS-16 spaceflight. At the time of his flight he was 18 years old, and became the youngest person, first teenager, and fi ...

, after the unnamed auction winner (later revealed to have been

Justin Sun Justin Sun ( zh, s=孙宇晨, p=Sūn Yǔchén; born July 30, 1990) is a Chinese-born Kittitian crypto billionaire and businessperson. He is the founder of TRON, a cryptocurrency with an associated blockchain DAO ecosystem and USDD, a stablecoi ...

) dropped out due to a scheduling conflict. Subsequent New Shepard passenger and cargo missions were: Blue Origin NS-17,

Blue Origin NS-18 Blue Origin NS-18 was a sub-orbital spaceflight mission operated by Blue Origin that launched on 13 October 2021. The mission was the eighteenth flight of the company's New Shepard integrated launch vehicle and spacecraft. It was the second Ne ...

Blue Origin NS-19 Blue Origin NS-19 was a New Shepard sub-orbital spaceflight mission operated by Blue Origin that launched on 11 December 2021. The flight was scheduled to launch on 9 December 2021, later delayed to 11 December 2021. The mission patch of the f ...

Blue Origin NS-20 Blue Origin NS-20 was a sub-orbital spaceflight mission operated by Blue Origin, which launched on 31 March 2022 using the New Shepard rocket. With six people on board, it was Blue Origin's fourth flight with passengers, and twentieth flight ov ...

Blue Origin NS-21 Blue Origin NS-21 was a sub-orbital spaceflight mission, operated by Blue Origin, which launched on 4 June 2022 using the New Shepard rocket. It was Blue Origin's fifth flight to carry passengers, and twenty-first overall to reach space. The m ...

and

Blue Origin NS-23 Blue Origin NS-23 was an sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital cargo spaceflight mission of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, New Shepard#New Shepard 3, New Shepard Booster 3 (NS3), which launched on September 12, 2022. The booster failed during ...

. The company primarily employs an incremental approach from

sub-orbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will no ...

orbital flight An orbital spaceflight (or orbital flight) is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, it must be on a free trajectory which has an altitud ...

, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company moved into the

orbital spaceflight An orbital spaceflight (or orbital flight) is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, it must be on a free trajectory which has an altit ...

technology

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development (music), the process by which thematic material is reshaped * Photographic development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting * Development hell, when a proje ...

business in 2014, initially as a

rocket engine A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stor ...

supplier via a contractual agreement to build the

rocket engine, for major US launch system operator

United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance, LLC (ULA) is an American launch service provider formed in December 2006 as a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Space and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The company designs, assembles, sells and launches rockets ...

(ULA).

(ULA) has said that the first flight of its

is scheduled to launch in Q4 of 2023. The

s main power is supported by two

engines. On June 7, 2023,

(ULA) performed a Flight Readiness Firing of the

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

at launch pad 41 at 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 sta ...

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

, Florida, United States. The two

s worked as expected. In 2024, the company won its first

National Security Space Launch National Security Space Launch (NSSL) is a program of the United States Space Force (USSF) intended to assure access to space for United States Department of Defense and other Federal government of the United States, United States government paylo ...

(NSSL) contract. The New Glenn vehicle is to be used on the launches.

Launch vehicles

New Shepard

is a fully reusable

suborbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will no ...

developed for

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. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, ...

. The vehicle is named after

Alan Shepard Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he became the List of Apollo astronauts#Apollo astr ...

, the first American astronaut in space. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and landings and can carry humans and customer payloads to the edge of space. The New Shepard is a

that consists of a

booster rocket A booster is a rocket (or rocket engine) used either in the first stage of a multistage rocket, multistage launch vehicle or in parallel with longer-burning sustainer engine, sustainer rockets to augment the space vehicle's takeoff thrust and p ...

and a crew capsule. The capsule can be configured to house up to six

passenger A passenger is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The vehicles may be bicycles, ...

cargo In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in cas ...

, or a combination of both. The

booster Booster may refer to: Amusement rides * Booster (Fabbri ride), a pendulum ride * Booster (HUSS ride), an evolution of the Breakdance ride * Booster (KMG ride), a pendulum ride Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters * Booster, a cha ...

rocket is powered by one

BE-3 The BE-3 (Blue Engine 3) is a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine developed by Blue Origin. The engine began development in the early 2010s and completed acceptance testing in early 2015. The engine is being used on the New Shepard subor ...

PM engine, which sends the capsule to an apogee (

Sub-Orbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will no ...

) of and flies above the

, where passengers and cargo can experience a few minutes of

weightlessness Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...

before the capsule returns to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. The launch vehicle is designed to be fully reusable, with the capsule returning to Earth via three

parachute A parachute is a device designed to slow an object's descent through an atmosphere by creating Drag (physics), drag or aerodynamic Lift (force), lift. It is primarily used to safely support people exiting aircraft at height, but also serves va ...

s and a

solid rocket motor A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder. The inception of gunpowder rockets in warfare can be cre ...

. The booster lands vertically on the same launchpad it took off from. The company has successfully launched and landed the

26 times with 1 partial failure (deemed successful) and 1 failure. The launch vehicle has a length of , a diameter of and a launch mass of . The

PM engine produces 490 kN of thrust at

takeoff Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle leaves the ground and becomes airborne. For aircraft traveling vertically, this is known as liftoff. For aircraft that take off horizontally, this usually involves starting with a tr ...

. The New Shepard allows the company to significantly reduce the cost of

. On the morning of February 25, 2025, Blue Origin launched its 10th space tourism mission and sent six paying passengers to suborbital space. This was the company's tenth human flight, and its 30th overall flight of New Shepard.

New Glenn

is a heavy-lift

, first successfully launched in January 2025. The initial launch date had been set back by numerous delays. Named after

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

John Glenn John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1 ...

, design work on the vehicle began in early 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. The full vehicle was first unveiled on a launch pad on February 21, 2024. The

has a diameter of 7 meters (23 ft), and its first stage is powered by seven

engines. The fairing is claimed to have twice the payload volume of "any commercial launch system" and to be the biggest

payload fairing A payload fairing or nose fairing is a nose cone used to protect a launch vehicle, spacecraft payload (air and space craft), payload against the impact of dynamic pressure and aerodynamic heating during launch through an atmosphere. An additiona ...

in the world. Like the

, New Glenn's first stage is also designed to be reusable. In 2021, the company initiated conceptual design work on approaches to potentially make the second stage reusable as well, with the project codenamed "

Project Jarvis New Glenn is a heavy-lift launch vehicle developed and operated by the American company Blue Origin. The rocket is designed to have a partially reusable, two-stage design with a diameter of . The first stage is powered by seven BE-4 engines, w ...

announced on February 9, 2023, that it had selected the New Glenn

for the launch of two Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) spacecraft. The New Glenn heavy-lift launch vehicle will launch ESCAPADE in Q2 of 2025 with the ESCAPADE

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...

entering

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

's orbit approximately one year after launch. In 2024, Blue Origin received funding from the

USSF USSF may refer to: * United States Servicemen's Fund, a support organization for soldier and sailor resistance to the Vietnam War and the U.S. military * United States Soccer Federation, governing body of soccer in the United States * United States ...

to assess New Glenn's ability to launch national security payloads. On January 16, 2025, Blue Origin achieved its first successful launch of New Glenn from

's Launch Complex 36 at 02:03 Eastern Time The mission's primary objective was to deploy the Blue Ring Pathfinder test satellite, which was successfully placed into orbit.

Blue Moon

In May 2019, Bezos unveiled plans for a crew-capable

lunar lander A lunar lander or Moon lander is a Lander (spacecraft), spacecraft designed to Moon landing, land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2024, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing s ...

named

. The lander is designed to transport up to to the lunar surface in its standard configuration, while a stretched-tank variant can carry up to . Both versions are engineered for soft landings on the Moon. In 2020, Blue Origin, in collaboration with

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry ...

, and

Draper Draper was originally a term for a retailer or wholesaler of cloth that was mainly for clothing. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. History Drapers were an important trade guild during the medieval period ...

, submitted the Blue Moon lunar lander proposal for NASA's Artemis program. After NASA awarded the human landing system (HLS) contract to SpaceX in 2021 for its

Starship HLS Starship HLS (Human Landing System) is a lunar lander variant of the Starship spacecraft that is slated to transfer astronauts from a lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back. It is being designed and built by SpaceX under the Human Lan ...

, Blue Origin contested the decision. This challenge ultimately led to NASA awarding a separate contract for Blue Moon in 2023. The lander is powered by the BE-7

hydrolox The highest specific impulse chemical rockets use liquid propellants (liquid-propellant rockets). They can consist of a single chemical (a monopropellant) or a mix of two chemicals, called bipropellants. Bipropellants can further be divided into ...

engine. On May 19, 2023, NASA contracted Blue Origin to develop, test, and deploy the Blue Moon landing system for the Artemis V mission. This mission will support lunar exploration and lay the groundwork for future crewed missions to Mars. The $3.4 billion contract includes an uncrewed test mission followed by a crewed Moon landing planned for 2029. In mid-2024, Blue Origin announced the successful completion of initial acceptance testing on the thrusters for the MK1 variant of the Blue Moon lander.

Rocket engines

BE-1

Blue Origin's first engine is a "simple, single-propellant engine" called the Blue Engine-1 (BE-1) which uses

peroxide In chemistry, peroxides are a group of Chemical compound, compounds with the structure , where the R's represent a radical (a portion of a complete molecule; not necessarily a free radical) and O's are single oxygen atoms. Oxygen atoms are joined ...

propellant and generates of

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...

BE-2

The Blue Engine-2 (BE-2) which is a bipropellant engine using

kerosene Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustibility, combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in Aviation fuel, aviation as well as households. Its name derives from the Greek (''kērós'') meaning " ...

and peroxide, produces of thrust.

BE-3 (BE-3U and BE-3PM)

The

is a family of rocket engines made by Blue Origin with two variants, the BE-3U and BE-3PM. The rocket engine is a

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen () is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecule, molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point (thermodynamics), critical point of 33 Kelvins, ...

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen . It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which is ongoing. Physical ...

(LH2/LOX) cryogenic engine that can produce and 710 kN (160,000 lbf) of thrust, respectively. Early thrust chamber testing began at

Stennis in 2013. By late 2013, the

had been successfully tested on a full-duration

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 the company's test facility near

. # The

BE-3U The BE-3 (Blue Engine 3) is a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine developed by Blue Origin. The engine began development in the early 2010s and completed acceptance testing in early 2015. The engine is being used on the New Shepard subor ...

is an open

expander cycle Expander may refer to: *Dynamic range compression operated in reverse *Part of the process of signal compression *Part of the process of companding *A component used to connect Serial Attached SCSI#SAS expanders, SCSI computer data storage, device ...

variant of the BE-3. Two of these engines will be used to power the

heavy-lift launch vehicle's second stage. The amount of thrust the BE-3U produces is 710 kilonewtons (160,000 lbf). # The

PM uses a pump-fed engine design, with a

combustion tap-off cycle The combustion tap-off cycle is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. The cycle takes a small portion of hot exhaust gas from the rocket engine's combustion chamber and routes it through turbopump turbines to pump fuel before being exhaus ...

to take a small amount of combustion gases from the main

combustion chamber A combustion chamber is part of an internal combustion engine in which the air–fuel ratio, fuel/air mix is burned. For steam engines, the term has also been used for an extension of the Firebox (steam engine), firebox which is used to allow a mo ...

to power the engine's

turbopump A turbopump is a fluid pump with two main components: a rotodynamic pump and a driving gas turbine, usually both mounted on the same shaft, or sometimes geared together. They were initially developed in Germany in the early 1940s. The most co ...

s. One engine is used to power the Propulsive Module (PM) of

. The amount of thrust the

PM produces is 490 kilonewtons (110,000 lbf). The rocket engine can be throttled to as low as 110 kN (25,000 lbf) for use in controlled vertical landings.

BE-4

The BE-4 is a

/liquified natural gas (LOX/LNG) rocket engine that can produce of thrust. In late 2014, the company signed an agreement with

(ULA) to develop the BE-4 engine, for ULA's upgraded

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas launch vehicle family. It was developed by Lockheed Martin and has been operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA) since 2006. Primarily used to ...

and

rockets replacing the

RD-180 The RD-180 () is a rocket engine that was 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-180 is derived from the RD-170 line of rocket engines, which were use ...

Russian-made rocket engine. The newly developed heavy-lift launch vehicle will use two of the BE-4 engines on each

first stage First stage or First Stage may refer to: * First Stage Children's Theater, a professional American children's theater based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin * First stage (rocketry), the first stage of a multistage rocket * the first reading of a bill in t ...

. The engine development program for the BE-4 began in 2011. On October 31, 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 being integrated on a Vulcan rocket. In a later tweet, ULA CEO

Tory Bruno Tory Bruno (born November 3, 1961, as Salvatore Thomas Bruno) is an American aerospace engineer and executive. He has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of United Launch Alliance (ULA) since August 2014. Before ULA, he worked at Lock ...

said that one of the engines had already been installed on the booster, and that the other would be joining it momentarily. On June 7, 2023, the two BE-4 rocket engines performed as expected when ULA performed a Flight Readiness Firing of the Vulcan Rocket at launch pad 41 at the

Cape Canaveral, Florida Cape Canaveral is a city in Brevard County, Florida. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne– Titusville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 9,912 at the 2020 US census. History After the establishment of a lighthouse in 184 ...

. Vulcan Centaur launched for the first time on January 8, 2024, successfully carrying

Astrobotic Technology Astrobotic Technology, Inc., commonly referred to as Astrobotic, is an American private company that is developing space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions. It was founded in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker a ...

's ''Peregrine'' lunar lander, the first mission on NASA's

Commercial Lunar Payload Services Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to hire companies to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon. Most landing sites are near the lunar south pole where they will scout for lunar resources, test in situ resource ...

(CLPS) program using the BE-4 engine.

BE-7

The BE-7 engine is a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen dual expander cycle engine currently under development, designed for use on

. The engine produces of thrust. Its first ignition tests were performed in June 2019, with thrust chamber assembly testing continuing through 2023.

Pusher escape motor

The company partnered with

Aerojet Rocketdyne Aerojet Rocketdyne is a subsidiary of American Arms industry, defense company L3Harris that manufactures rocket, Hypersonic flight, hypersonic, and electric propulsive systems for space, defense, civil and commercial applications. Aerojet traces ...

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. It is used in the event of a critical emergency to quickly separate the capsule from its launch vehicle in case of an emergency requiri ...

for the

suborbital crew capsule. Aerojet Rocketdyne provides the Crew Capsule Escape

Solid Rocket Motor A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder. The inception of gunpowder rockets in warfare can be cre ...

(CCE SRM) while the

thrust vector control Thrust vectoring, also known as thrust vector control (TVC), is the ability of an aircraft, rocket or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engine(s) or motor(s) to control the attitude or angular velocity of the veh ...

system that steers the capsule during an abort is designed and manufactured by Blue Origin.

Facilities

NASA Deputy Administrator Tours Blue Origin

The company has facilities across the US which include five main locations and five field offices: *

(headquarters) *

, Florida *

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is the List of municipalities in Alabama, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the List of United States cities by population, 100th-most populous ...

Marshall Space Flight Center Marshall Space Flight Center (officially the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center; MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville postal address), is the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government's ...

, Alabama *

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County, or simply Arlington, is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Virginia. The county is located in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington, D.C., the nati ...

Denver, Colorado Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

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Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

The company's headquarters is in

. Rocket development takes place at its headquarters. The company has continued to expand its Seattle-area offices and rocket production facilities since 2016, purchasing an adjacent -building. In 2017, the company filed permits to build a new warehouse complex and an additional of office space. The company established a new headquarters and R&D facility, called the O'Neill Building on June 6, 2020.

Launch Site One (LSO)

Corn Ranch Corn Ranch, commonly referred to as Launch Site One (LSO), is a spaceport owned and operated by Blue Origin which is located approximately north of the town of Van Horn, Texas, United States. The plot of land was purchased by Jeff Bezos in ...

, commonly referred to as Launch Site One (LSO) is the company's launch site north of

. The site hosts the company's sub-orbital launch pad for its New Shepard rocket along with a landing pad. Additionally, LSO has a number of rocket engine test stands and engine test cells are to support the

methalox The highest specific impulse chemical rockets use liquid propellants (liquid-propellant rockets). They can consist of a single chemical (a monopropellant) or a mix of two chemicals, called bipropellants. Bipropellants can further be divided into ...

and storable propellant engines. There are three test cells for the BE-3 and BE-4 engines. The test cells support full-thrust and full-duration burns, and one supports short-duration, high-pressure

preburner The staged combustion cycle (sometimes known as topping cycle, preburner cycle, or closed cycle) is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. In the staged combustion cycle, propellant flows through multiple combustion chambers, and is thu ...

tests.

Blue Engine

Engine production is located in

, at a facility called, "Blue Engine". The companies website states that, "The world-class engine manufacturing facility in The Rocket City conduct high rate production of the BE-4 and BE-3U engines. The company is planning a third major expansion in Huntsville and the company purchased adjacent to its already sprawling campus at the price of $1.427 million.

Orbital Launch Site (OLS)

The Orbital Launch Site (OLS) at the

, develops rockets and conducts extensive testing. The company converted Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) to launch

into orbitBlue Origin's Rocket Factory Breaks Ground, June 2016
, accessed Feb 2022 at

. The facility was initially completed in 2020 and is being used for the construction of New Glenn prototypes, rocket testing, and designs. The company facility is situated on of land assembled from the former Launch complexes 11, 12, 36A and 36B. The land parcel used to build a rocket engine test stand for the BE-4 engine, a launch mount, called the Orbital Launch Site, (hence its name) and a reusable

refurbishment facility for the New Glenn launch vehicle, which is expected to land on a drone ship and return to

Port Canaveral Port Canaveral is a cruise, cargo, and naval port in Brevard County, Florida, United States. In 2022, the port has the busiest cruise terminals in the world with over 4 million passengers passing through it during the fiscal year. Additional ...

for refurbishment. Manufacturing of "large elements, such as New Glenn's first and second stages as well as the

s and other large components will be made nearby in Exploration Park, which is near the entrance to the

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is the visitor center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It features exhibits and displays, historic spacecraft and memorabilia, shows, two IMAX theaters, and a range of bus tou ...

Merritt Island, Florida Merritt Island is a peninsula, commonly referred to as an island, in Brevard County, Florida, United States, located on the eastern Florida coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the name of an unincorporated town in the central and south ...

. In addition to their Florida operations, they have also been leased the greenfield of Space Launch Complex 9 (SLC-9) at

Vandenberg Space Force Base Vandenberg Space Force Base , previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from the ...

, where they plan to construct a New Glenn launch pad to give the launch vehicle

polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of abo ...

and

Sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...

capabilities.

Other projects

Blue Ring

The Blue Ring vehicle was announced in October 2023 by Blue Origin. It will have its own engine and is meant to handle orbital logistics and delivery. In March 2024, in partnership with the

United States Space Force The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space force branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces, armed forces of the United States and one of the eight uniformed services of the Unite ...

, it was announced that the Blue Ring's capabilities will be tested soon on a mission called DarkSky-1.

Orbital Reef (commercial space station)

The company and its partners

Sierra Space Sierra Space Corporation is a privately held aerospace and space technologies company headquartered in Louisville, Colorado, with additional facilities in Colorado, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina and a testing site at the Marshall Space Fl ...

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

, Redwire Space and Genesis Engineering Solutions won a $130million award to jump-start the design of their Orbital Reef commercial space station. The project is envisioned as an expandable business park, with Boeing's Starliner and Sierra Space's

Dream Chaser Dream Chaser is an American reusable lifting-body spaceplane developed by Sierra Space. Originally intended as a crewed vehicle, the Dream Chaser Space System is set to be produced after the Dream Chaser Cargo System cargo variant is opera ...

transporting passengers to and from

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

(LEO) for

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

, research and in-space manufacturing projects. Orbital Reef's design will be modular in nature, to provide the greatest amount of customization and compatibility. It will reportedly be designed to accept docking from almost every spacecraft in operation, such as

SpaceX Dragon 2 Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...

Soyuz (spacecraft) Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia (corporation), Energia). The Soyuz succeeded ...

, and

Boeing Starliner The Boeing Starliner (or CST-100) is a spacecraft designed to transport crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and other low-Earth-orbit destinations. Developed by Boeing under NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP), it consists o ...

. The initial modules will be: Life, Node, Core, and Research Modules. In 2024 NASA increased funding for Orbital Reef by $42 million, bringing the total award to $172 million.

Nuclear rocket program

plans to test

, engines and other propellent systems powered by

nuclear fission Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactiv ...

no later than 2027 as part of the agency's effort to demonstrate more efficient methods of traveling through outer space for

space exploration Space exploration is the process of utilizing astronomy and space technology to investigate outer space. While the exploration of space is currently carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration is conducted bo ...

. One benefit to using

as a propellent for spacecraft is that nuclear-based systems can have less mass than solar cells which means a

could be smaller while using the same amount of energy more efficiently.

Nuclear fission Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactiv ...

concepts that can power both life support and propulsion systems could greatly reduce the cost and flight time during space exploration. The

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 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 Adva ...

awarded

General Atomics General Atomics (GA) is an American energy and defense corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, that specializes in research and technology development. This includes physics research in support of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion en ...

and Blue Origin contracts to fund and build

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

spacecraft under the agency's Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations program or DRACO program. The company was awarded $2.9 million to develop

component designs. In partnership with Blue Origin, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation,

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) is a provider of advanced reactors and nuclear services. It is headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States. Established in June 2007, GEH is a nuclear alliance created by General Electric and Hitach ...

, GE Research,

Framatome Framatome () is a French nuclear reactor business. It is owned by Électricité de France (EDF) (80.5%) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (19.5%). The company first formed in 1958 to license Westinghouse's pressurized water reactor (PWR) designs ...

and Materion, USNC-Tech won a $5 million contract from

and the

U.S. Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear we ...

(DOE) to develop a long range nuclear propulsion system called the Power Adjusted Demonstration Mars Engine, or PADME.

Space technology

NASA awarded $35 million to the company in 2023 for the company's work on

lunar regolith Lunar regolith is the unconsolidated material found on the surface of the Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth d ...

to be used for solar powered systems on the moon. The company's website states that "Blue Alchemist is a proposed end-to-end, scalable, autonomous, and commercial solution that produces solar cells from lunar regolith, which is the dust and crushed rock abundant on the surface of the Moon. Based on a process called molten regolith electrolysis, the breakthrough would bootstrap unlimited electricity and power transmission cables anywhere on the surface of the Moon. This process also produces oxygen as a useful byproduct for propulsion and life support." Gary Lai, chief architect of the New Shepard rocket said during the pathfinder awards at the Seattle Museum of Flight that

he company He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter ca ...

"aims to be the first company that harvests natural resources from the Moon to use here on Earth". He also mentioned that the company is building a novel approach to extract outer space's vast resources.

Blue Origin flights before 2025

In 2025, Blue Origin achieved orbital spaceflight with the maiden launch of

. Below is a list of all Blue Origin flights before 2025. For list of flights performed after 1 January 2025 see the articles of

and

where they are listed. In the chart below, ♺ means "Flight Proven Booster".

NASA partnerships and funding

The company has contracted to do work for

on several development efforts. The company was awarded $3.7 million in funding by

in 2009 via a Space Act Agreement under the

first First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

Commercial Crew Development Development of the Commercial Crew Program (CCDev) began in the second round of the program, which was rescoped from a smaller technology development program for human spaceflight to a competitive development program that would produce the space ...

(CCDev) program for development of concepts and technologies to support future human

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

operations.

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 bionic capsule, that would be launched atop an

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

for $22 million 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 bionic 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 The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (Europe), ...

by 2017. The company did not submit a proposal for CCiCap, but reportedly continued work on its development program with private funding. The company had a failed attempt to lease a different part of the

Space Coast The Space Coast is a region in the U.S. state of Florida around the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It is one of several "themed" coasts around Florida. All orbital launches from American soil carrying NASA ast ...

, when they submitted a bid in 2013 to lease

Launch Complex 39A Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, was built in the 1960s to accommodate the Saturn V lau ...

(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 NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

– on land to the north of, and adjacent to, Cape Canaveral AFS – following

's decision to lease the unused complex out as part of a bid to reduce annual operation and maintenance costs. The companies 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 () is a machine designed for self-propulsion, usually to transport people, cargo, or both. The term "vehicle" typically refers to land vehicles such as human-powered vehicles (e.g. bicycles, tricycles, velomobiles), animal-powered tr ...

, 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 companies proposed plan was

(ULA).

Commercial use Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

of the LC39A launch complex was awarded to

, which submitted a bid for exclusive use of the launch complex to support their crewed missions. The company completed work for

on several small development contracts, receiving total funding of $25.7 million by 2013. In September 2013 – before completion of the bid period, and before any public announcement by

of the results of the process –

Florida Today ''Florida Today'' is the major daily newspaper serving Brevard County, Florida. Al Neuharth of the Gannett corporation started the paper in 1966, and some of the things he did with this newspaper presaged what he would later do at ''USA Toda ...

reported that the company had filed a protest with the

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

General Accounting Office (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 U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) reached a decision on the protest.

said that they would be willing to support a multi-user arrangement for pad 39A. In December 2013, the

General Accounting Office (GAO) denied the companies protest and sided with

, 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".

selected the

proposal in late 2013 and signed a 20-year lease contract for Launch Pad 39A to

in April 2014. The company placed their first bid via the

Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) competition to fund and develop a lunar lander capable of transporting

s to and from the lunar surface. The Blue Origin led team called the "National Team" included,

, and

. On April 30, 2020, the company and its partners won a $579 million contract to start developing and testing an integrated Human Landing System (HLS) for the

to return humans to the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

. However, the Blue Origin led team lost their first bid to work for

's Artemis program and on April 16, 2021,

officially selected the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) to develop, test and build their version of the Human Landing System (HLS) for

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

missions 2 (II), 3 (III) and 4 (IV). In early 2021, the company received over $275 million from

for

projects and

research flights. The company then announced on December 6, 2022, that it had submitted a second bid via the

Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) competition to fund and develop a second lunar lander capable for transporting

s to and from the lunar surface. The announcement fell within

's deadline for Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) proposals. As with their first bid, the company is leading another team called the "National Team" which includes

Astrobotic Astrobotic Technology, Inc., commonly referred to as Astrobotic, is an American private company that is developing space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions. It was founded in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Mellon ...

, Honeybee Robotics and Blue Origin. On May 19, 2023

contracted the company to develop, test and deploy its Blue Moon landing system for the agency's Artemis V mission, which explores the

and prepares future crewed missions to

. The project includes an uncrewed test mission followed by a crewed

landing in 2029. The contract value is $3.4 billion.

Internal and additional U.S Government funding

By July 2014,

had invested over $500million into the company. and the vast majority of further funding into 2016 was to support

technology development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage of d ...

and operations where a majority of funding came from

' private investment fund. In April 2017, an annual amount was published showing that

was selling approximately $1billion in

stock per year to

invest Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources into something expected to gain value over time". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broade ...

in the company.

has been criticized for spending excessive amounts of his fortune on

. The company received $181 million from the United States Air Force for launch vehicle development in 2019. The company was also eligible to benefit from further grants totaling $500M as part of the U.S. Space Force Launch Services Agreement competition. On November 18, 2022, the U.S. Space Systems Command announced that an agreement with the company that "paves the way" for the company's

to compete for

national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...

launch contracts once it completes its required flight certifications for

Top Secret Classified information is confidential material that a government deems to be sensitive information which must be protected from unauthorized disclosure that requires special handling and dissemination controls. Access is restricted by law or ...

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

payloads. In an interview with Bob Smith by the financial Times in 2023, Smith said that the company had "hundreds of millions in revenue as well as billions of dollars in orders". The company is part of the

DARPA Lunar Programs Recognizing the rapid lunar exploration, DARPA envisions a thriving cislunar and lunar economy of scientific research and commercial development over the next decade. It has launched two programs to address the need for shareable, scalable commerci ...

, specifically Luna10, an architecture study for lunar surface operations.

Early test vehicles

Charon

The company's first flight test vehicle, called ''

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

'' 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 Su ...

'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 The Museum of Flight is a private Nonprofit organization, non-profit Aircraft, air and Spacecraft, space museum in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is located at the southern end of Boeing Field, King County International Airport (Boeing Fi ...

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 a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

records, two further flights were performed by Goddard. Blue Engine 1, or BE-1, was the first rocket engine developed by the company and was used in the company's Goddard development vehicle.

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 May 6, 2011. The second flight, August 24, 2011, failed when ground personnel lost contact and control of the vehicle. The company released its analysis of the failure nine days later. As the vehicle reached a speed of

Mach The Mach number (M or Ma), often only Mach, (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a Boundary (thermodynamic), boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Austrian physi ...

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 Airfoil#Airfoil terminology, reference line on a body (often the chord (aircraft), chord line of an airfoil) and the vector (geometry), vector representing the relat ...

that triggered he range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle". The vehicle was lost. Blue Engine 2, or BE-2, was a pump-fed bipropellant engine burning

and

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

References

External links

* {{Authority control 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 Jeff Bezos

History

Launch vehicles

New Shepard

New Glenn

Blue Moon

Rocket engines

BE-1

BE-2

BE-3 (BE-3U and BE-3PM)

BE-4

BE-7

Pusher escape motor

Facilities

Launch Site One (LSO)

Blue Engine

Orbital Launch Site (OLS)

Other projects

Blue Ring

Orbital Reef (commercial space station)

Nuclear rocket program

Space technology

Blue Origin flights before 2025

NASA partnerships and funding

Internal and additional U.S Government funding

Early test vehicles

Charon

Goddard

PM2

See also

References

External links