Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark will join the auction winner on New Shepard’s first human flight on July 20th, 2021. Ever since Jeff Bezos was five years old, he has dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, he will take that journey with his brother. The greatest adventure, with his best friend. It …
A new amended Senate bill requires that NASA’s nearly $3 billion lunar lander award to SpaceX may not be changed or rescinded in order to comply with the requirement that there be at least two contractors. The NASA Commercial Crew Program was the effort to get safer human-rated spacecraft after the Shuttle. NASA selected two …
ULA, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has four Delta 4-Heavy rockets left to launch in the next few years. All will launch spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. The retirement was announced in 2019 and the last Delta IV Heavy should fly in 2023. ULA’s Delta 4 Heavy’s price has …
The US Air Force is ending Launch Service Agreement contracts awarded in October 2018 to Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, as well as to ULA. The Launch Service Agreement contracts were to help Phase 2 competitors pay for launch vehicle development and infrastructure. Blue Origin received $500 million; Northrop Grumman $792 million and ULA $967 …
The Blue Origin New Glenn Rocket will be a Falcon Heavy class vehicle with a reusable first stage. There are six New Glenn launches scheduled for 2021. In October 2018, the Air Force announced Blue Origin was awarded $500 million for development of New Glenn as a potential competitor in future contracts, including EELV Phase …
Blue Origin will lead a lunar lander development project. They will work with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. These partners have decades of experience supporting NASA with human space flight systems, launch vehicles, orbital logistics, deep-space missions, interplanetary navigation and planetary landings. This part of the US effort to return to the moon by …
Blue Origin Upgrades to Kennedy Space Center Site 36 for Reusable New Glenn Launches
Europe has provided 3 million euros in funding for a three year investigation of reusable rockets. This program is not funded to actually build or fly any vehicles. They want to agree on specifics of two designs. Europe is tentatively starting a low commitment reusable rocket program nine years after SpaceX announced their program. Europe …
Jeff Bezos discussed his vision to go to space to benefit Earth. He announced the Blue Moon lunar lander and provided updates on the New Shepard sub-orbital rocket and the New Glenn rocket.
Blue Origin has started building a BE-4 rocket-engine production facility in Huntsville, Alabama. It will cost more than $200 million and employ about 300 when it opens in March 2020. This was reported by the Herald Net. The facility will build the BE-4 engine that Blue Origin expects to finish developing later this year. Blue …
Blue Origin has successfully launched a first commercial payload. It was a sub-orbital launch with the New Shepard rocket. The New Shepard system took 8 NASA-sponsored research and technology payloads into sub-orbital space. This flight was dedicated to NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, an essential program for researchers providing access to microgravity for technology development. Blue …
