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.
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The AR1 contract awarded in 2016 was later reduced to $350,000,000 after United Launch Alliance selected Blue Origin’s BE-4 for its Vulcan rocket.
Congress removed $100,000,000 that the Air Force no longer has to pay to Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin for Launch Service Agreement contracts that are being terminated.
United Launch Alliance selected Blue Origin’s BE-4 in September 2018 for its Vulcan main engine.
Blue Origin originally targeted a 2020 debut for New Glenn, which by early 2019 had slipped to 2021.
On 2020-12-16, NASA awarded a launch services contract to Blue Origin that added New Glenn to the agency’s NASA Launch Services (NLS) 2 contract vehicle.
Since announcing New Glenn in 2016, Blue Origin has secured commercial customers including Eutelsat, Mu Space, OneWeb, Sky Perfect JSAT, and Telesat.
Blue Origin is producing BE-4 engines in Kent, Washington and will test them at its facility in West Texas.
Blue Origin delivered two BE-4 pathfinder engines for ground tests and will deliver the actual flight BE-4 engines to United Launch Alliance’s factory in Decatur, Alabama in summer 2021.
In February, Blue Origin opened a factory in Huntsville, Alabama to produce BE-4 and BE-3U engines.
Blue Origin has been constructing the New Glenn launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Launch Complex 36.
As of 2020-12-17, Blue Origin had not provided new public information on the progress of New Glenn development or an estimated date for its first launch.
Blue Origin invested more than $2,500,000,000 of private funds into New Glenn development.
United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket uses BE-4 engines provided by Blue Origin.
Blue Origin built a factory adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center to manufacture New Glenn.
Blue Origin started testing the BE-7 engine in June 2019 at NASA Marshall and has accumulated 1,245 seconds of runtime to date.
For NASA’s HLS program, the BE-7 will be used on the descent stage developed by Blue Origin and derived from its Blue Moon concept.
Blue Origin announced the BE-7 engine in May 2019 when it unveiled its Blue Moon lunar lander.
The BE-7 builds upon the BE-3 PM hydrogen/oxygen engine that powers Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle.
Blue Origin established a seven-person board of advisors on 2020-12-01.
Blue Origin formed a Board of Advisors on 2020-12-01 in Kent, Washington.