Blue Origin scores first major national security launch deal

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A NASA Mars smallsat mission is slated to launch in late September on the first flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, assuming the vehicle is ready in time.

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Blue Origin expects to launch the first version of its Blue Moon lunar lander, a precursor to a future crewed lunar lander it is developing for NASA, in 2025.

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Blue Origin is highlighting the capabilities of an orbital transfer vehicle design it announced last year, including the ability of the spacecraft to serve as a fuel depot.

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Blue Origin has secured an $18 million contract with the U.S. Space Force for integration studies related to its New Glenn launch vehicle.

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NASA expects that a Mars smallsat mission will be on the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle within a year, although with some risk about whether the rocket will be ready in time.

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Bob Smith, chief executive of Blue Origin, will resign from the company in December and be replaced by Dave Limp, the Amazon executive who had been overseeing development of its Project Kuiper constellation.

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The three companies with multibillion-dollar contracts to launch Amazons’s Project Kuiper constellation say they are committed to deploying those satellites on schedule despite delays in the development of their vehicles.

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Blue Origin expects to be ready to resume launches of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle in the next few weeks as it completes its recovery from an in-flight anomaly nine months ago.

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Even as the space industry complains of a shortage of launch capacity, SpaceX said it has room to increase an already surging pace of launches.

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Blue Origin has won its first NASA award for its New Glenn rocket, with the agency selecting the large rocket to launch a pair of Martian smallsats.

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The U.S. Space Systems Command signed an agreement with Blue Origin that “paves the way” for the company’s New Glenn rocket to compete for national security launch contracts

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Several new launch vehicles, some years behind their original schedules, are now expected to make their inaugural launches within the next year.

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A Blue Origin executive said it’s too soon to conclude what caused the failure of a New Shepard suborbital vehicle on a Sept. 12 flight, playing down any implications for the company’s New Glenn orbital rocket.

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A large ship that Blue Origin planned to convert into a landing platform for New Glenn boosters is instead being sent to the scrapyard as the company changes its recovery plans.

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United Launch Alliance is planning major production improvements for its Vulcan rocket while Arianespace will increase the performance of its Ariane 6 to meet the demands of their new Amazon contracts for Project Kuiper.

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United Launch Alliance remains confident that its Vulcan Centaur rocket will make its first launch this year while Blue Origin is pushing back the first flight of its New Glenn vehicle.

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Blue Origin has signed a cooperative agreement with the U.S. military to explore the possibility of using its rockets to transport cargo and people around the world.

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Executives of two launch companies insisted their vehicles will be ready for their inaugural flights in 2022 while a third acknowledged their new vehicle’s first flight will likely slip beyond the end of next year.

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Senior VP Jarrett Jones said the schedule had to be pushed back following the Space Force decision to not select New Glenn as a national security launch provider.

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NASA has added New Glenn, the large launch vehicle under development by Blue Origin, to the list of vehicles eligible to compete for future agency missions.

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Blue Origin says the Air Force should continue to fund New Glenn so it can be certified for national security missions.  

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Blue Origin formally opened a factory Feb. 17 that the company plans to use to produce engines both for its vehicles and for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket.

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Blue Origin has studied repurposing upper stages of its future New Glenn launch vehicle to serve as habitats or for other applications as part of a series of NASA-funded commercialization studies.

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