Blue Origin, founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, is an American aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company. It develops reusable rocket engines, launch vehicles like New Shepard and New Glenn, in-space systems, and lunar landers such as Blue Moon. Blue Origin is also a NASA partner, collaborating on the Artemis program for lunar exploration and working towards a sustainable human presence on the Moon, with partners like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Draper. Key activities include space tourism, satellite deployment capabilities, and advancing technologies to lower space travel costs.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
Blue Origin has expressed interest in Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-6 but has not announced firm plans to launch from the West Coast.
On 2019-10-22, Jeff Bezos presented a plan for Blue Origin to work with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper on a lunar lander proposal for NASA’s Human Landing Services competition.
Blue Origin will provide the Descent Element based on the Blue Moon lunar lander and its BE-7 engine.
Blue Origin formed a national team to offer a Human Landing System for NASA’s Artemis program to return Americans to the lunar surface by 2024.
On 2019-10-02 Blue Origin was increasingly unlikely to start flying people on its New Shepard suborbital vehicle by the end of 2019 as the company worked to ensure the vehicle’s safety.
New Shepard last flew on 2019-05-02 on an uncrewed mission designated NS-11 from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site.
Blue Origin received the largest Tipping Point award of $10,000,000 to carry out a ground demonstration of technology to liquefy and store hydrogen and oxygen.
The hydrogen and oxygen liquefaction and storage technology funded to Blue Origin could be used on a lunar propellant production plant to convert water ice into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for use by lunar landers such as Blue Origin’s proposed Blue Moon lander.
Blue Origin’s protest seeks to compel the Air Force to break the five-year Phase 2 block-buy into smaller lots of launches to create more frequent competitions and on-ramps for new entrants.
Blue Origin filed a pre-award protest with the U.S. Government Accountability Office on 2019-08-12 challenging the Air Force’s Phase 2 launch service procurement.
Blue Origin’s protest contends that the 2019-05-03 final request for proposals has unclear and ambiguous selection criteria and discriminates against new competitors by asking bidders to offer a backup launch vehicle.
In Phase 2 the Air Force will select two launch providers from a field of four competitors that includes United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman.
Blue Origin received $500,000,000 in Air Force funding to help defray the expense of meeting the government’s unique launch requirements.
Blue Origin filed a pre-award protest with the Government Accountability Office on 2019-08-12 arguing that the Air Force’s rules do not allow a fair and open competition.
SpaceX filed a protest with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on 2019-05-17 over the Air Force’s 2019-10-10 decision to provide funding to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, and ULA but not to SpaceX.
United Launch Alliance selected Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine in September 2018 rather than Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 to power the first stage of its Vulcan rocket.
The Air Force awarded $2,200,000,000 in Launch Service Agreement funding to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, and United Launch Alliance in 2018.
NASA awarded Purdue University funding in 2018 to fly the FEMTA miniature water-fueled thruster on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket in 2021.
Vulcan Centaur’s first stage will be powered by two domestically built BE-4 engines from Blue Origin.
Blue Origin’s BE-4 main engine, which runs on liquid oxygen and liquid methane, has been in development since 2011 and will be tested on the ground prior to Vulcan’s first launch.