Tag: Blue Origin

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Success! Blue Origin fires up BE-4 rocket engine

BE-4 engine firing
Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine blasts through its initial hot-fire test. (Blue Origin Photo)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says it has successfully test-fired its BE-4 rocket engine, marking a key step in the development of its own New Glenn rocket as well as United Launch Alliance’s next-generation rocket.

Billions of dollars are at stake in the BE-4 project, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno told GeekWire last year.

ULA has been waiting for months to get good news about the BE-4 tests in West Texas. The company wanted to see a successful full-scale test before going ahead with plans to use the BE-4 engine on its Vulcan rocket, which is due to have its first flight in 2019.

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Rocketeer-racer gets his day in the sun

Shane family
Hydroplane driver Jimmy Shane stands for a family portrait with his wife, Bianca, and his sons Colton and Hudson behind hydroplane racing’s Gold Cup. (HomeStreet Bank Photo)

Today Jimmy Shane took a little time off from his day job — building spaceships at Blue Origin — to bask in the glory surrounding his other claim to fame, as America’s champion hydroplane driver.

Shane was the center of attention at Seattle’s Westlake Center during a noontime rally that featured a performance by the Seahawks’ Blue Thunder drumline, burgers from Dick’s Drive-In, and giveaways from Seattle-based HomeStreet Bank, the corporate sponsor for Shane’s hydroplane team.

Can you get any more Seattle-centric than that?

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Blue Origin announces Mu satellite launch deal

New Glenn rocket
An artist’s conception shows the New Glenn rocket during ascent. (Blue Origin Photo)

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, announced yet another agreement to launch a telecommunications satellite with its next-generation New Glenn rocket in the 2020s.

The latest customer is Mu Space Corp., a Thai startup that unveiled its plans for terrestrial and satellite-based broadband data services (plus space tourism) in the Asia-Pacific region just last month.

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Blue Origin points the way for Amazon’s HQ2

Jeff Bezos in Florida
Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos shows off an artist’s conception of the New Glenn rocket as Florida Gov. Rick Scott looks on during 2015’s announcement that Blue Origin would build a rocket factory in the Sunshine State. Will there be a similar production for Amazon’s HQ2 announcement? (NASA via YouTube)

What do Jeff Bezos and his lieutenants look for when they’re in an expansive mood? That’s a key question in the multibillion-dollar contest to attract Amazon’s second headquarters, and the Blue Origin space venture – Bezos’ other multibillion-dollar enterprise – may well offer clues to the answer.

Over the past few years, Blue Origin has gone through not just one, but two high-profile nationwide searches for expansion sites.

In 2015, the company chose Florida’s Space Coast for a 750,000-square-foot rocket manufacturing facility and an orbital launch pad. This June, Blue Origin tentatively tapped Alabama for a 200,000-square-foot engine factory.

The scale of Amazon’s HQ2 project will be much bigger: An estimated $5 billion in investment and about 50,000 jobs are at stake for the host city – as opposed to $205 million in investment and 330 high-tech jobs for Blue Origin’s Florida operation, and $200 million and 350 jobs for Alabama.

Nevertheless, it’s not unreasonable to think that at least some of the calculations behind Bezos’ HQ2 process will be similar to those that drove Bezos’ Blue Origin process.

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Blue Origin makes its pitch for moonshots

Blue Moon lander
An artist’s concept shows the Blue Moon lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration)

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, joined other companies today in laying out plans for commercial missions to the moon during a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.

“It’s time for America to return to the moon, this time to stay,” Brett Alexander, Blue Origin’s director of business development and strategy, told members of the House Subcommittee on Space. That declaration echoed Bezos’ oft-used phrase, virtually word for word.

Blue Origin has already been testing a suborbital space vehicle called New Shepard, with an eye toward taking on passengers as early as next year. It’s also developing a more powerful orbital-class rocket called New Glenn, which could be used as part of a lunar mission architecture known as Blue Moon.

Today Alexander said the Blue Moon lunar lander would be optimized to fly on NASA’s Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket that’s due for its first test flight in 2019. When paired with the SLS, Blue Moon could deliver more than 5 tons of cargo to the lunar surface. Smaller payloads could be delivered using New Glenn or other rockets.

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Oshkosh crowds mob Blue Origin spaceship

Even Jeff Bezos was impressed when Blue Origin’s suborbital space booster and capsule mockup went on display at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wis.

The line to get a look inside the New Shepard capsule snaked around the equivalent of city blocks, as shown in an aerial view that the billionaire founder of Blue Origin (and a little side venture called Amazon) tweeted today:

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Jeff Bezos makes a spacey Instagram debut

Jeff Bezos in Instagram video
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos previews coming attractions from a chair set up on the roof of Blue Origin’s rocket factory in Florida. (Jeff Bezos via Instagram)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos posted his first video on Instagram today, but it wasn’t about the proceeds from Prime Day: Rather, it was about the Blue Origin rocket factory that’s taking shape in Florida.

In his caption, Bezos said construction was “coming along nicely.” The factory is due for completion by early next year, and should be turning out hardware for orbital-class New Glenn rockets soon afterward.

Bezos set up his Blue Origin venture in 2000 to follow through on his childhood dream of spaceflight. The company is headquartered in Kent, Wash., but it has a suborbital rocket test facility in Texas and is planning a rocket engine factory in Alabama as well as the Florida factory and orbital launch site.

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Jeff Bezos wins an award … from Buzz Aldrin!

Jeff Bezos and Buzz Aldrin
Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos receives the Buzz Aldrin Space Innovation Award from Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin during a gala at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Buzz Aldrin via Twitter)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin space venture have picked up a good number of awards over the past year, but this weekend’s award was the first of its kind.

The Buzz Aldrin Space Innovation Award was created by the famed Apollo 11 moonwalker, who gave Bezos his weighty glass trophy during a July 15 gala at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

In a day-after tweet, the 87-year-old Aldrin said he was “delighted” to have Bezos and Blue Origin as the award’s first honorees. Bezos tweeted his thanks in return.

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Blue Origin to build engines in Rocket City

Blue Origin BE-4 engines
Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engines are currently produced in Kent, Wash. (Blue Origin Photo)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ space venture, Blue Origin, plans to invest $200 million to build its BE-4 rocket engine in a new facility in Huntsville, Ala., which has been known for decades as the Rocket City.

Construction of the 200,000-square-foot facility at Huntsville’s Cummings Research Park can begin once Blue Origin wins an engine production contract from United Launch Alliance for its next-generation Vulcan rocket, the Huntsville / Madison County Chamber said today in a news release.

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Jeff Bezos lays out vision for city on the moon

Blue Moon lander
Artist’s concept shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration)

SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk may have his heart set on building a city on Mars, but Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space vision looks closer to home. He’s gazing at the moon.

“I think we should build a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon,” Bezos said today during a Q&A with kids at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. “It’s time to go back to the moon, but this time to stay.”

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