Blue Origin is an American aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos. The company has developed technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal of reducing the cost of space transportation and making it more accessible. Blue Origin’s first launch vehicle, known as New Shepard, is a suborbital rocket designed to take astronauts and scientists above the Karman line—the internationally recognized boundary of outer space. The company is also developing a reusable orbital launch vehicle called New Glenn, which is expected to begin flying in 2021. Blue Origin has conducted multiple test flights of both vehicles from its private spaceport in West Texas.
The name “Blue Origin” comes from Jeff Bezos’ vision for humanity’s future: “I want us to be a multi-planet species… I’d like there to be many billions of humans living and working in Space… It will only happen if it’s an affordable place to live… By 2025 I want millions of people living and working in Space.”
In 2015, United Launch Alliance (ULA), the largest provider of launch services for US government payloads, announced that it had selected Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine to power its next generation Vulcan rocket. The BE-4 uses liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) as propellants, making it one of the few LOX/LNG engines in development. In 2016, Blue Origin signed a lease with Nasa for use of historic Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center—the same pad used by Apollo 11 for the first manned Moon landing mission.
On 5 November 2017, Blue Origin successfully launched and landed their Crew Capsule 2 (CC2), marking the beginning of their efforts to develop a reusable crewed spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). On 23 January 2018, they announced that they would be partnering with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman & Draper Laboratory to develop CC3—a fully integrated human-rated version of their New Shepard system designed for NASA missions carrying astronauts to LEO destinations such as the International Space Station (ISS).
Blue Origin continues work on both New Shepard and New Glenn—two very different vehicles designed for two very different markets: suborbital tourism & research vs satellite deployment & heavy cargo transport respectively. They are united by a common purpose: To drastically reduce the cost & complexity associated with accessing space; ultimately enabling millions instead of just thousands or hundreds per yearto experience & benefit from what our solar system has to offer.