The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space. New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism. New Shepard booster landing, "Launch Site One", Van Horn, TX, US The Blue Origin-led team includes Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic and Honeybee Robotics. In May 2023, Blue Origin was selected as the second provider (in addition to SpaceX's Starship HLS) for lunar lander services for NASA's Artemis program and was awarded a $3.4 billion contract. In early 2021, the company received over $275 million from NASA for lunar lander projects and sub-orbital research flights. New Shepard ticket sales brought in $50 million through June 2022. New Shepard performed six crewed flights between July 2021 and August 2022, taking a mix of sponsored celebrities such as Wally Funk, William Shatner as well as paying customers. Blue Origin said in its press release that New Shepard flights would resume as soon as possible. After a six-month investigation, Blue Origin pinpointed the cause of the anomaly as a thermal-structure failure of the BE-3 engine nozzle which caused a thrust misalignment that triggered the capsule's emergency escape system to activate. The remaining New Shepard launch vehicles were grounded pending an FAA investigation into the incident. The launch escape system triggered and the capsule landed safely. In September 2022, an uncrewed mission of the New Shepard had an anomaly due to a failure of the BE-3 main engine. On June 4, 2022, New Shepard completed its fifth crewed mission launch and the sixth crewed flight took place on August 4, 2022. The Fourth crewed flight happened in March 2022. The second and third crewed missions of New Shepard took place in October and December 2021. The passengers were Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen, after the unnamed auction winner (later revealed to have been Justin Sun) dropped out due to a scheduling conflict. The flight lasted approximately 10 minutes and crossed the Kármán line. On July 20, 2021, the New Shepard performed its first crewed mission into space. New Glenn is planned to launch in Q3 of 2024. The New Glenn heavy-lift launch vehicle can be configured in both two-stage and three-stage variants. Blue Origin publicly released the high-level design of the vehicle and announced its name in September 2016 as "New Glenn". In January 2016, Blue Origin indicated that the new rocket would be many times larger than New Shepard. The heavy-lift launch vehicles main power is supported by two BE-4 engines.Īfter 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, Blue Origin publicly announced their orbital launch vehicle intentions in September 2015. ULA has said that the first flight of its Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift launch vehicle is scheduled to launch in Q3 of 2023. Blue Origin moved into the orbital spaceflight technology development business in 2014, initially as a rocket engine supplier via a contractual agreement to build the BE-4 rocket engine, for major US launch system operator United Launch Alliance (ULA). The company primarily employs an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. In November 2006, the first test vehicle was launched, the Goddard rocket, which reached an altitude of 285 feet. In 2006, the company purchased land for its launch site and test facility in Texas. Little is known about the company’s activities in its early years. Rob Meyerson joined Blue Origin in 2003 and served as the company's president before leaving the company in 2018. History īlue Origin was founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and current executive chairman of Amazon. The company is working on a fourth advanced rocket engine, called the BE-7, which is still under development and when completed, will be used on planetary bodies other than Earth. The company has three engines in production including the BE-3U, BE-3PM and BE-4. The company was selected as the second provider for lunar lander services for NASA's Artemis program and was awarded a $3.4 billion contract. The company also manufactures rockets, spacecrafts and heavy-lift launch vehicles. Blue Origin makes rocket engines for the United Launch Alliance and other customers. Blue Origin, LLC is an American aerospace, space exploration company and launch service provider headquartered in Kent, Washington, United States.
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