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.
Artemis III will test rendezvous and docking capabilities between Orion and commercial lunar landers developed by Blue Origin and SpaceX.
Artemis III will give NASA opportunities to interact with SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System pathfinder and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 pathfinder.
Data gathered from the Blue Moon Mark 2 physical cabin will inform Blue Origin’s ongoing design and development process.
NASA attributed the slip in Artemis III from an early 2027 target to developmental delays with SpaceX’s Starship HLS and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon landers.
NASA and Blue Origin personnel will use the Blue Moon Mark 2 mock-up for human-in-the-loop testing.
Blue Origin delivered a full-scale prototype of its Blue Moon Mark 2 lunar lander crew cabin to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
SpaceX and Blue Origin are pursuing Human Landing System landers for Artemis.
Ewan Reid said the lunar rover will be needed to move hundreds of tons of payload expected to arrive on the Moon via Human Landing Systems sent by SpaceX, Blue Origin, or both.
Amazon has contracted launch capacity from United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Blue Origin for Amazon Leo.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicle after the April 19 launch anomaly.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn experienced an orbital deployment anomaly in April 2026 that placed an AST SpaceMobile satellite in an incorrect orbit.
Blue Origin expects Endurance to complete final preflight checkouts in Florida before a New Glenn launch targeted for late 2026.
Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar lander completed environmental testing inside Thermal Vacuum Chamber A at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Amazon Leo’s remaining launch manifest includes Ariane 6 and Blue Origin New Glenn.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn is expected to enter high-cadence service later in 2026.
Blue Origin’s Blue Moon MK1 program is part of a broader commercial lunar architecture being developed under NASA’s Human Landing System initiative.
Blue Origin plans to make MK1-SN002 and later vehicles available to payload customers after the demonstration mission validates the system’s core capabilities.
Blue Moon Mark 1 is targeted for launch on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite was lost after the Blue Origin New Glenn NG-3 mission on April 19 left its payload in an unusable off-nominal orbit.
A successful Blue Moon MK1 mission would make Endurance the first Blue Origin spacecraft to reach the lunar surface.