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.
The winning bidder of Blue Origin’s auction will fly to space on New Shepard’s first human flight on 2021-07-20.
Blue Origin received a $579,000,000 base period award for the HLS program in April 2020.
Blue Origin bid $5,990,000,000 for the HLS Option A award.
Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office on 2021-04-26 seeking to overturn the HLS Option A award.
NASA selected SpaceX for the HLS Option A award on 2021-04-16, and work on the award is on hold because of protests by Blue Origin and Dynetics.
Blue Origin is on track to deliver BE-4 engines 2021.
United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin signed a deal in 2014 to jointly fund development of the BE-4 rocket engine.
Blue Origin delivered BE-4 pathfinder engines for ground tests in 2020 but had not provided a flight-qualified BE-4 engine for Vulcan’s first flight as of the source date.
United Launch Alliance awarded Blue Origin a contract in 2018 for production of BE-4 engines for Vulcan.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket could launch around 30 Lightspeed satellites at a time depending on orbit.
Telesat has lined up Blue Origin and Relativity Space as early launch providers for Lightspeed and is in talks with additional launch partners it expects to announce 2021.
The Government Accountability Office is reviewing protests filed by Blue Origin and Dynetics about NASA’s selection of SpaceX for the single Human Landing System award, with a decision due by 2021-08-04.
Blue Origin planned to auction a seat on the first New Shepard flight with people on board scheduled for 2021-07-20.
Bob Cabana led a transformation of Kennedy Space Center after the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011 into a multi-user spaceport with tenants such as Blue Origin, Boeing, and SpaceX.
Blue Origin will require New Shepard passengers to arrive at its West Texas site four days before launch and to undergo three days of training that includes working in a mockup of the New Shepard crew capsule and learning emergency protocols.
Blue Origin used the 2021-04-14 New Shepard test flight to practice procedures for future crew flights, including having company personnel board the vehicle during prelaunch preparations and practicing exiting the vehicle after landing.
Blue Origin opened sealed online bidding for the New Shepard seat from 2021-05-05 to 2021-05-19 during which bids were not visible to participants.
Blue Origin will auction one seat on the first crewed New Shepard flight with sealed bids accepted through 2021-05-19 and a live auction concluding on 2021-06-12.
Blue Origin plans New Shepard to fly its first astronaut crew to space on 2021-07-20.
On 2021-05-05 Blue Origin offered one seat on the first astronaut flight of New Shepard through an online auction.