A few weeks ago, the chief executive of Blue Origin, Dave Limp, convened an all-hands meeting for the more than 12,000 employees at the company. Among the most critical items he discussed was the launch rate for the New Glenn rocket and how the company would fall significantly short of its goal for this year.<\/p>\n
Before 2025 began, Limp had set expectations alongside Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos: New Glenn would launch eight times this year.<\/p>\n
However, since the rocket\u2019s mostly successful debut in January, five months have passed. At one point the company targeted \u201clate spring\u201d for the second launch of the rocket. However, on Monday, Limp acknowledged on social media that the rocket\u2019s next flight will now no longer take place until at least August 15. Although he did not say so, this may well be the only other New Glenn launch this year.<\/p>\n
The mission, with an undesignated payload, will be named \u201cNever Tell Me the Odds,\u201d due to the attempt to land the booster.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our key mission objectives will be to land and recover the booster,\u201d Limp wrote. \u201cThis will take a little bit of luck and a lot of excellent execution. We\u2019re on track to produce eight GS2s this year, and the one we\u2019ll fly on this second mission was hot-fired in April.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this comment, GS2 stands for \u201cGlenn stage 2,\u201d or the second stage of the large rocket. It is telling that Limp commented on the company tracking toward producing eight second stages, which would match the original launch cadence planned for this year. This likely is a fig leaf offered to Bezos, who, two sources said, was rather upset that Blue Origin would not meet (or even approach) its original target of eight launches this year.<\/p>\n
One person familiar with the progress on the vehicle told Ars that even a launch date in August is unrealistic\u2014this too may have been set aggressively to appease Bezos\u2014and that September is probably the earliest the rocket is likely to be ready for launch. Blue Origin has not publicly stated what the payload will be, but this second flight is expected to carry the ESCAPADE mission for NASA.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
On May 28, a couple of days after Limp\u2019s all-hands meeting, the chief executive emailed his entire team to announce an \u201corganizational update.\u201d As part of this, the company\u2019s senior vice president of engines, Linda Cova, was retiring. Multiple sources confirmed this retiring was expected and that the company\u2019s program to produce BE-4 rocket engines is going well.<\/p>\n
However, the other name in the email raised some eyebrows, coming so soon after the announcement that New Glenn\u2019s cadence would be significantly slower than expected. Jarrett Jones, the senior vice president running the New Glenn program, was said to be \u201cstepping away from his role and taking a well deserved year off\u201d starting on August 15. It is unclear whether this departure was linked to Bezos\u2019 displeasure with the rocket program. One company official said Jones\u2019 sabbatical had been planned, but the timing is curious.<\/p>\n
A search for internal and external candidates to fill his role is ongoing.<\/p>\n
The missed expectations must be disappointing for Bezos, who in January said his priority for Blue Origin this year was to hit a higher cadence with the company\u2019s new rocket. When Ars asked what Bezos wanted to see accomplished this year, he replied, \u201cRate manufacturing and driving urgency around the machine that makes the machine. We need to produce a lot of second stages. And we need to produce a lot of booster stages, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an interesting time for the company that Bezos founded a quarter of a century ago. Given the breakdown in relations between President Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk last week, there is a newfound hunger in the federal government for alternatives to Musk\u2019s dominant launch company. If New Glenn could get flying frequently, there would be ample launch contracts available.<\/p>\n
Moreover, Bezos\u2019 other company, Amazon, is making good progress on building Project Kuiper satellites\u2014according to one person, nearly two-dozen spacecraft for the company\u2019s third operational launch have already arrived at Cape Canaveral, Florida. However, due to delays with Amazon\u2019s other partners for Kuiper, these satellites will go to space on SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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