Tag: Blue Origin
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ULA, SpaceX win landmark multibillion-dollar launch agreements with Pentagon
Artist’s concept of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. Credit: ULA United Launch Alliance and SpaceX beat out Northrop Grumman and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin for billions of dollars in U.S. military rocket contracts, and will share the load in launching the Pentagon’s highest-priority national security space missions through 2027, officials announced Friday. ULA, the 50-50…
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NASA developing plans to fly astronauts on suborbital rockets
File photo of a New Shepard launch. Credit: Blue Origin NASA says it is interested in flying astronauts and scientists on commercial suborbital vehicles, like those being tested by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, to provide additional training and research opportunities augmenting missions to the orbiting International Space Station. The space agency announced this week…
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NASA lays out a plan to qualify suborbital spacecraft for its astronauts and scientists
Blue Origin employees test procedures for getting spacefliers into the New Shepard suborbital spaceship at the company’s launch facility in West Texas. (Blue Origin via YouTube) NASA says it’ll formulate a plan to assess the safety of suborbital spacecraft — such as Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship or Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane —…
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NASA gets set to put astronauts on Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic suborbital flights
Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut trainer, Beth Moses, exults over the view out the window of the company’s VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo rocket plane during a suborbital spaceflight in February 2019. (Virgin Galactic Photo) NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine signaled today that astronauts would soon be cleared to take suborbital spaceflights aboard the commercial rocket ships being tested…
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Vulcan on track as ULA eyes early-2021 test flight to the Moon
United Launch Alliance has announced their Vulcan rocket is progressing towards its maiden launch as soon as early-2021. While an exact launch target isn’t known yet, the mission will use a newly-built Launch Umbilical Tower while sharing Atlas V’s Vertical Integration Facility and SLC-41 launch pad in Florida. When first announced in 2014 as a…
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Vulcan on track as ULA eyes early-2021 test flight to the Moon
United Launch Alliance has announced their Vulcan rocket is progressing towards its maiden launch as soon as early-2021. While an exact launch target isn’t known yet, the mission will use a newly-built Launch Umbilical Tower while sharing Atlas V’s Vertical Integration Facility and SLC-41 launch pad in Florida. When first announced in 2014 as a…
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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is putting its own merch on sale … finally
A heavy-lift coffee mug is among the items for sale via Blue Origin’s online store. (Blue Origin Photo) Considering the fact that Blue Origin was founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, you’d think that the Seattle-area space venture would be one of the pioneers in online merchandise sales. But the company has just now opened…
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Companies release new details on human-rated lunar lander concepts
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated May 1 with details from Blue Origin. Artist’s illustration of SpaceX’s Starship on the lunar surface. Credit: SpaceX The next time astronauts land on the moon, they will ride to the lunar surface in a spacecraft that looks a lot different than the Apollo-era landing module last used in 1972. Lander concepts proposed…
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Blue Origin wins lion’s share of NASA funding for human-rated lunar lander
Artist’s illustration of Blue Origin’s lunar lander with an ascent stage, and astronauts on the lunar surface. Credit: Blue Origin NASA has selected Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX to move forward with development of human-rated lunar landers, committing nearly $1 billion in funding for a range of moonship concepts that include a variant of SpaceX’s…
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NASA puts Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX on the list for lunar lander development program
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander, equipped with an ascent module built by Lockheed Martin. (Blue Origin Illustration via NASA) NASA has selected teams led by Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX to develop lunar landing systems capable of putting astronauts on the moon by as early as 2024. “We want to be…