49 Facts About Blue Origin

Blue Origin, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington.

Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work.

Blue Origin's name refers to the blue planet, Earth, as the point of origin.

Blue Origin develops orbital technology, rocket-powered vertical takeoff and vertical landing vehicles for access to suborbital and orbital space.

Blue Origin moved into the orbital spaceflight technology development business in 2014, initially as a rocket engine supplier for others via a contractual agreement to build a new large rocket engine, the BE-4, for major US launch system operator United Launch Alliance .

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Blue Origin was founded in 2000 in Kent, Washington, and began developing both rocket propulsion systems and launch vehicles.

In July 2015, NanoRacks, a provider of services such as payload design and development, safety approvals, and integration, announced a partnership with Blue Origin to provide standardized payload accommodations for experiments flying on Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle.

The 2014 announcement added that Blue Origin had been working on the engine for three years prior to the public announcement, and that the first flight on the new rocket could occur as early as 2019.

In September 2015, Blue Origin announced details of an unnamed planned orbital launch vehicle, indicating that the first stage would be powered by its BE-4 rocket engine currently under development, while the second stage would be powered by its recently completed BE-3 rocket engine.

In March 2016, Blue Origin invited journalists to see the inside of its Kent, Washington headquarters and manufacturing facility for the first time.

Blue Origin was planning for substantial growth in 2016 as it planned to build more crew capsules and propulsion modules for the New Shepard program and ramp up BE-4 engine builds to support full-scale development testing.

In March 2017, Bezos announced that Blue Origin had acquired its first paying launch customer for orbital satellite launches.

In September 2017, Blue Origin closed a deal for New Glenn with its first Asian customer, Mu Space.

Blue Origin, based in Thailand, plans to provide satellite-based broadband services and space travel in Asia-Pacific.

In December 2017, Blue Origin launched a test experiment on New Shepard with a technology that could one day treat chest trauma in a space environment.

In June 2018, Blue Origin indicated that while it continued to plan to fly initial internal passengers later in 2018, it would not be selling commercial tickets for New Shepard until 2019.

In May 2019 Blue Origin announced the Blue Moon lander design concept, expected to fly on the New Glenn launch vehicle and be ready to make a soft landing on the Moon as early as 2024.

In early 2021, Blue Origin announced a revised schedule estimate for the first launch of New Glenn.

In June 2021, Blue Origin auctioned off a seat on the company's debut private astronaut mission for $28 million; however, the winner of the auction did not take part in the flight due to a scheduling conflict.

Blue Origin's lawsuit is causing delays to the Artemis program and NASA's planned moon landing.

Blue Origin released its analysis of the failure nine days later.

In October 2012, Blue Origin conducted a successful New Shepard pad escape test at its West Texas launch site, firing its pusher escape motor and launching a full-scale crew capsule from a launch vehicle simulator.

Blue Origin expected "a series of dozens of flights over the extent of the test program [taking] a couple of years to complete".

Blue Origin intends to launch the rocket from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36, and manufacture the rockets at a new facility on nearby land in Exploration Park.

Blue Origin began developing systems for orbital human spacecraft prior to 2012.

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Blue Origin successfully completed a System Requirements Review of its orbital Space Vehicle in May 2012.

Blue Origin Moon lander is a crew-carrying lunar lander unveiled in 2019.

On 24 August 2021, Blue Origin had rolled a stainless steel test tank to their Launch Complex 36 facility.

Blue Origin publicly entered the liquid rocket engine business by partnering with ULA on the development of the BE-4, and working with other companies.

Blue Engine 1, or BE-1, was the first rocket engine developed by Blue Origin and was used on the company's Goddard development vehicle.

Blue Origin publicly announced the development of the Blue Engine 3, or BE-3, in January 2013, but the engine had begun development in the early 2010s.

Blue Origin began work on a new and much larger rocket engine in 2011.

Blue Origin did not announce the new engine to the public until September 2014.

In late 2014, Blue Origin signed an agreement with United Launch Alliance to co-develop the BE-4 engine, and to commit to use the new engine on an upgraded Atlas V launch vehicle, replacing the single RD-180 Russian-made engine.

The engine is running four years behind schedule, and Blue Origin has experienced a variety of problems, both technical and managerial.

Blue Origin partnered with Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop a pusher launch escape system for the New Shepard suborbital Crew Capsule.

In late 2012, Blue Origin performed a pad abort test of the escape system on a full-scale suborbital capsule.

Blue Origin has a development facility near Seattle, Washington, a facility in Reston, Virginia and a privately owned spaceport in West Texas.

In 2017, Blue Origin established a manufacturing facility for launch vehicles in Florida near where they will launch New Glenn from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, after initiating design and construction in 2015.

At Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, from 2016, Blue Origin have been converting Launch Complex 36 to launch New Glenn to orbit.

Blue Origin completed work for NASA on several small development contracts, receiving total funding of by 2013.

Blue Origin has contracted to do work for NASA on several development efforts.

Blue Origin was awarded in funding in 2009 by NASA via a Space Act Agreement under the first Commercial Crew Development program for development of concepts and technologies to support future human spaceflight operations.

Blue Origin did not submit a proposal for CCiCap, but is reportedly continuing work on its development program with private funding.

Blue Origin had a failed attempt to lease a different part of the Space Coast, when they submitted a bid in 2013 to lease Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center – on land to the north of, and adjacent to, Cape Canaveral AFS – following NASA's decision to lease the unused complex out as part of a bid to reduce annual operation and maintenance costs.

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The Blue Origin bid was for shared and non-exclusive use of the LC39A complex such that the launchpad was to have been able to interface with multiple vehicles, and costs for using the launch pad were to have been shared across multiple companies over the term of the lease.

In September 2013 – before completion of the bid period, and before any public announcement by NASA of the results of the process – Florida Today reported that Blue Origin had filed a protest with the U S General Accounting Office "over what it says is a plan by NASA to award an exclusive commercial lease to SpaceX for use of mothballed space shuttle launch pad 39A".

Blue Origin cooperated with Boeing in Phase 1 of the DARPA XS-1 spaceplane program.

Blue Origin was reportedly in contracting talks with the United States Space Force as well according to Lt.