Tag: Blue Origin

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Blue Origin strikes deal to launch Japan satellites

Blue Origin and Sky Perfect JSAT executives
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith and founder Jeff Bezos meet with Sky Perfect JSAT CEO Shinji Takada and other executives. (Blue Origin Photo via Twitter)

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, says it has signed up Japan’s Sky Perfect JSAT for a satellite launch to geostationary orbit in the 2020s.

Today’s announcement of the deal was timed to coincide with the Satellite 2018 conference in Washington, D.C., one of the year’s top events for satellite operators and launch providers.

In its tweet, Blue Origin didn’t provide much detail about the deal, such as the pricing or the timing for the launch. But the agreement involves sending up a yet-to-be-named Sky Perfect JSAT satellite on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, which is currently under development.

Blue Origin is targeting 2020 for the first launch of New Glenn — which is named after the late senator-astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth.

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Jobs hint Blue Origin will soon sign up astronauts

An artist’s conception shows passengers looking through one of the windows in Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship. (Blue Origin Illustration)

Some of the nearly 200 job opportunities posted by Blue Origin suggest Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space venture is preparing to sign up passengers for its New Shepard suborbital spaceflights.

One listing is looking for an astronaut experience manager to help create “a highly differentiated offering that culminates in the customer becoming an astronaut.”

Another listing calls for someone to run a training program for New Shepard flight controllers.

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Moon ambitions get a reality check — and a boost

Blue Moon lander
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander. (Blue Origin Illustration)

Who’s going to the moon? The prospects are looking dimmer for any commercial lunar landings in the short term — but Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture today used a milestone in space history to spotlight its longer-term lunar aspirations.

The bad news is that none of the remaining five contenders for the Google Lunar X Prize is likely to get to the moon in time to win a $20 million award in March.

Google has repeatedly extended the deadline for doing a lunar landing, but CNBC quoted the company as saying there’d be no more extensions beyond March 31.

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Blue Origin spends $14 million to buy more space

Blue Origin factory
A Blue Origin engineer assembles a New Shepard parachute cover, with the crew capsule in the background at the company’s production facility in Kent, Wash. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has spent $14.1 million to buy 31 acres of land that’s earmarked for expansion of its headquarters in Kent, Wash.

Purchase of the undeveloped land at and around 21601 76th Av., just southwest of Blue Origin’s 26-acre main office and production facility, was reported in King County records last week. The transaction was brought to light on Dec. 26 by Seattle’s Daily Journal of Commerce.

The property has long been owned by members of Barnier family, who have been farming in the Kent Valley since the 1800s, and was sold through Bar-Gem LLC, a family business entity.

That plot of land has been the subject of Blue Origin’s expansion plans for more than a year. Kent land-use records describe a project that calls for the construction of about 236,000 square feet of warehouse area, and 102,900 square feet of office space. There’d also be significant roadway improvements, landscaping and paved areas for parking and truck maneuvering.

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Blue Origin ramps up Florida rocket facility

Propellant tanks
Tanks for liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas, the propellants to be used by Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, are lined up at Launch Complex 36 in Florida. (Blue Origin Photo via Twitter)

Blue Origin hasn’t put up the “Grand Opening” sign yet, but there’s clearly business going on at the Florida rocket facilities built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space venture.

The latest sign came today, when Blue Origin tweeted out a picture of propellant tanks being delivered to Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is destined to host Blue Origin’s orbital-class New Glenn rocket.

“Starting to look more and more like a launch pad!” the tweet read.

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Get a dummy’s-eye view of Blue Origin rocket ride

Test dummy
An instrumented test dummy, nicknamed “Mannequin Skywalker,” sits next to one of the huge windows in the New Shepard crew capsule. (Blue Origin Photo)

What will people experience when they rocket to the edge of space on the New Shepard suborbital spaceship that’s currently being tested by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin venture?

An 11-minute video, recorded inside the crew capsule during this week’s test flight in West Texas, gives you a pretty good idea.

You can even watch the flight’s effect on a test subject — in this case, an instrumented crash-test dummy nicknamed “Mannequin Skywalker.” (For those who have been on another planet for the past 20 years, that name’s a tribute to Anakin Skywalker, a central character in the “Star Wars” saga.)

One of the big takeaways is that there’s no crash: At the end of the ride, the capsule drifts down to the ground and lands with what looks like a relatively gentle floof.

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Blue Origin’s rocket gives test dummy a ‘great ride’

Blue Origin booster
Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster touches down in Texas after a successful test. (Blue Origin Photo)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos says his space venture, Blue Origin, launched the latest version of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship today for the company’s first test flight in 14 months, with an instrumented test dummy seated aboard.

“He had a great ride,” Bezos said tonight in a tweet.

The uncrewed, straight-up, straight-down trip was conducted at Blue Origin’s testing ground in West Texas. The video that Bezos included with his tweet showed the New Shepard blasting off and rising above a wide-open spread of ranchland.

In addition to the dummy, which was nicknamed “Mannequin Skywalker,” the New Shepard crew capsule carried 12 commercial, research and educational payloads, Blue Origin said.

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Blue Origin gives notice for spaceship flight test

Image: Jeff Bezos
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin venture is getting ready for launch. (Blue Origin Photo)

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has alerted the Federal Aviation Administration that it’s planning to put a brand-new New Shepard rocket ship through an uncrewed flight test at its West Texas spaceport this week.

The FAA passed along word of the impending test in what’s known as a “Notice to Airmen,” or NOTAM.

The notice alerts aviators to stay away from the testing ground, on Bezos’ ranchland north of Van Horn, Texas, between 6:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. PT daily starting Dec. 11 and ending Dec. 14.

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Jeff Bezos on life, liberty and the pursuit of space

Image: Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin's New Shepard craft
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (in hat and sunglasses) pops open a bottle of champagne after Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket landing in November 2015. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ vision for his Blue Origin rocket venture is to have millions of people living and working in space — but why?

During this month’s Summit Series invitation-only event in Los Angeles, Bezos explained that it’s not just because he’s a Star Trek fan — although he is that indeed. He sees going beyond Earth as a critical step toward preserving life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness on our home planet.

That’s not even considering fellow billionaire Elon Musk’s view that Mars and other planets would serve as a Plan B for humanity in the event of an Earth-killing catastrophe.

“I hate the ‘Plan B’ argument,” Bezos said during a fireside chat that featured his brother Mark as emcee.

Instead, Bezos extrapolates from current trends in population growth and energy use, just as British physicist Stephen Hawking did this month. If the lines on the chart creep up by just a few percent per year, eventually “you’d have to cover the entire Earth’s surface in solar cells,” he said.

“That’s not going to happen,” he continued. “So, we have two choices: We either go out into space, or we switch over to a civilization of stasis. Personally, I do not like the idea of stasis.”

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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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