Tag: Blue Origin

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Another look at Jeff Bezos’ gee-whiz frontier

New Shepard and drone
An Amazon delivery drone hovers with Blue Origin’s New Shepard spaceship in the background. (Amazon via Ben Fox Rubin / YouTube)

We already knew that Amazon provided a rare public demonstration of its delivery drone dropping off some sunscreen at this week’s MARS 2017 conference in Palm Springs, Calif. We also knew that Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket ship, which went to space and back five times, was on display at the invitation-only event, organized by Amazon to show off frontier technologies in Machine learning, home Automation, Robotics and Space exploration. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see a fresh video showing the drone at work with the spaceship in the background.

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Jeff Bezos gets his bearings on rocket engine

BE-4 rocket engine testing
The BE-4 rocket engine’s powerpack is installed on a stand at Blue Origin’s West Texas proving ground for startup transient testing. (Blue Origin Photo)

What’s the difference between ball bearings and hydrostatic bearings? You should have more of an inkling after checking out Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ latest update on the development of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine.

The engine is undergoing testing for use not only on the New Glenn rocket that Bezos’ space venture is planning, but also on United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket.

The BE-4 is designed to provide 550,000 pounds of thrust, propelled by liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas. Bezos says that kind of thrust should be enough to send a payload on the first leg of a trip to the moon when seven of them are firing together.

But that kind of performance can involve a lot of wear and tear, particularly if you’re using traditional ball and roller bearings. To maximize the engine’s reusability, Blue Origin’s team is taking a different approach. To keep the BE-4 running smoothly, Bezos says the turbine at the heart of the engine’s turbopump will use a thin film of the fluid propellants as its bearings.

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OneWeb satellites added to Blue Origin’s list

Wyler and Bezos
OneWeb executive chairman Greg Wyler and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos shake hands on a deal for satellite launches on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. (Blue Origin Photo)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A day after announcing the first launch customer for Blue Origin’s yet-to-be-built New Glenn rocket, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos introduced the second customer: OneWeb, a venture that aims to create a satellite network for global broadband access.

Over the next few years, OneWeb is planning to send hundreds, and then thousands of small satellites into low Earth orbit. In partnership with Airbus, OneWeb is due to build and launch the first satellites within the next year. It’s also planning a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing complex on Florida’s Space Coast – not far from where Blue Origin is building a 750,000-square-foot factory for New Glenn rockets.

OneWeb already has struck deals with Virgin Orbit and Arianespace for the initial launches. The deal that Bezos announced today provides for five additional launches on the New Glenn, starting in 2021.

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Blue Origin’s first launch customer: Eutelsat

Jeff Bezos and Rodolphe Belmer
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon as well as the Blue Origin space venture, takes the stage with Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos revealed satellite operator Eutelsat as the first paying customer for his Blue Origin space venture’s New Glenn orbital rocket, and showed off a new animation depicting the rocket taking off, delivering a satellite to orbit and landing on a barge at sea.

Bezos and the chairman of this week’s Satellite 2017 conference, Jeffrey Hill, brought the Paris-based satellite operator’s CEO, Rodolphe Belmer, on stage as a surprise guest during today’s keynote chat.

“We couldn’t hope for a better first partner,” Bezos said.

In a news release, Eutelsat said the first payload would be a geostationary satellite, to be launched in the 2021-2022 time frame.

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Jeff Bezos shows off shiny new rocket engine

BE-4 engine
Blue Origin employees move the BE-4 engine through the company’s production facility in Kent, Wash. (Blue Origin Photo via Jeff Bezos / Twitter)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is providing a sneak peek at his Blue Origin space venture’s BE-4 rocket engine, which could someday help power missions to the moon.

Today’s preview tweets comes a day before Bezos is expected to update his vision for commercial space missions at the Satellite 2017 conference in Washington, D.C. The BE-4 engine, fueled by liquefied natural gas, is expected to play a key role in that vision.

Bezos announced that the first BE-4 has been built at Blue Origin’s production facility in Kent, Wash., and the second and third are “following close behind.”

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Blue Origin proposes moon delivery in 2020

Image: Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin
Jeff Bezos shows off the concept for Blue Origin’s launch system during a 2015 news conference in Florida. The rocket could reportedly be adapted for moon missions. (Blue Origin photo)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has reportedly proposed sending a robotic lander to the moon’s south polar region by 2020, as an initial step toward an “Amazon-like” lunar delivery system and eventually a permanently inhabited moon base.

Blue Origin’s white paper is described in a report from The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos.

The Post says the company’s seven-page proposal, dated Jan. 4, has been circulating among NASA’s leadership and President Donald Trump’s transition team. It’s only one of several proposals aimed at turning the focus of exploration beyond Earth orbit to the moon and its environs during Trump’s term.

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Blue Origin has big plans for expansion at HQ

Blue Origin factory
Hardware is spread across the New Shepard assembly area. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has out-of-this-world ambitions – with expansion plans to match.

Permit filings at the city of Kent, Wash., reveal plans for a 236,000-square-foot warehouse complex and 102,900 square feet of office space, southwest of Blue Origin’s current 300,000-square-foot headquarters and rocket production facility in an industrial area of the city.

Last year, Blue Origin purchased a 120,000-square-foot warehouse building across the street from its headquarters to support the production of the company’s BE-3 and BE-4 rocket engines, as well as its New Shepard suborbital boosters and crew capsules.

“When we go to the next step with our next rocket, we’re going to use that building as a bigger facility for production,” the Puget Sound Business Journal quoted Blue Origin’s president, Rob Meyerson, as saying.

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Buzz Aldrin visits Jeff Bezos’ rocket factory

Bezos and Aldrin
Jeff Bezos, Buzz Aldrin and the moonwalker’s son, Andrew Aldrin, are front and center in this picture taken at Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, Wash. Buzz Aldrin’s longtime assistant, Christina Korp, is to the right and behind Andrew Aldrin. (Blue Origin Photo via Twitter)

It’s been a good week for Blue Origin, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space venture. Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin just paid a visit to the company’s headquarters in Kent, Wash., and today the team behind Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship won one of the space industry’s most prestigious prizes.

Aldrin dropped by only a couple of days after starring in a New York fashion show, and in a picture that Bezos tweeted today, it looks as if the 87-year-old space icon is wearing the same T-shirt. Aldrin is the guy standing in the front row between his son, aerospace executive Andrew Aldrin, and Bezos himself.

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What it’ll be like to ride Blue Origin’s rocket

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

The folks who ride New Shepard, the suborbital spaceship being tested by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, will be given barf bags to tuck into their flight suits. But they almost certainly won’t need them.

That’s the word from former NASA astronaut Nicholas Patrick, who is now working out what passengers aboard New Shepard will experience. His official title at Blue Origin is human integration architect.

Patrick and other Blue Origin employees showed off what the company’s done so far, and what it plans to do over the next couple of years, for a standing-room crowd of about 500 folks on Jan. 27 during an “Astronomy on Tap” presentation at the Peddler Brewing Company in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood.

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Jeff Bezos gives a boost to his rocket engine

Ox Boost Pump
An employee works on the BE-4 Ox Boost Pump prior to engine installation. (Blue Origin Photo)

And now for something completely different from Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos: His latest mass email isn’t about jobs, or Donald Trump, or his new D.C. digs. It’s about a rocket engine boost pump.

Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, which he founded more than 16 years ago, is in the midst of building a next-generation rocket engine fueled by liquefied natural gas, known as the BE-4. Today, Bezos lifted the curtain on one of the engine’s subassemblies and highlighted how Blue Origin is using 3-D printing.

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