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Jeff Bezos’ private space company Blue Origin recently announced plans to launch a six-person crew on a New Shepard rocket this Sunday.
If all goes well, it will be the company’s first manned rocket launch in nearly two years.The last manned flight August 2022 Among them was Sara Sabry, the first Egyptian and Arab woman in space.
The launch, scheduled for this weekend, will be a major milestone for the company. It marks a return to human suborbital spaceflight and the millions of dollars in revenue that comes with it.
Still, late last year, Jeff Bezos said on Rex Fridman’s podcast that “Blue Origin needs to be faster.”
That’s why Blue Origin lags behind competitors like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX.
Why it took two years for Blue Origin’s upcoming launch
New Shepard launched during its 22nd mission in August 2022. It was the last time the company flew a crew into suborbital space. blue origin
Blue Origin has performed well from 2021 to the first half of 2022, completing New Shepard launches about once every two months, the most in the company’s history.
However, on September 12, 2022, one of the unmanned rockets failed.
Approximately one minute into the flight, Blue Origin lost its first stage booster due to a defect in the booster’s engine nozzle. The first stage fell from the sky and crash-landed in the Texas desert. There was no damage to people, buildings or other property.
However, it was the space company’s momentum that suffered.
The Federal Aviation Administration then grounded New Shepard until Blue Origin took 21 corrective actions, including redesigning some engine and nozzle parts, to prevent similar accidents.
The space company was more than 400 days away from its next launch. This gives one of Blue Origin’s competitors, Virgin Galactic, time to catch up after experiencing setbacks in the early 2020s.
Blue Origin’s suborbital business
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket is fully reusable, allowing the company to launch and relaunch payloads and crew into suborbital space. blue origin
Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are both involved in suborbital space tourism. They fly people into suborbital space at an altitude of about 90 miles, where they can experience several minutes of weightlessness before returning home.
In 2023, Virgin Galactic completed six crewed launches with SpaceShipTwo. These launches include the company’s first commercial service flight carrying members of the Italian Air Force in June 2023 and its first flight carrying civilian astronauts in August of the same year.
But Virgin Galactic shut down operations in February after a small part fell from the spaceplane mothership on its latest space tourism flight. So this Sunday’s launch could be a chance for Blue Origin to make a comeback.
But ticket prices for Blue Origin’s rockets and Virgin Galactic’s spaceplanes are notable for their competitiveness.
Prices vary, and Blue Origin does not disclose the price per seat for New Shepard. However, Quartz reported that seats for Blue Origins’ last crewed launch in August 2022 cost about $1.25 million. That’s nearly triple the $450,000 price for a seat on Virgin Galactic.
Blue Origin’s dreams and delays in orbit
An illustration of Blue Origin’s reusable New Glenn rocket being launched into space. blue origin
Suborbital tourism can be lucrative, but the real money is in orbital spaceflight.
Private companies like SpaceX (founded in 2002), United Launch Alliance (founded in 2006), and Rocket Lab (founded in 2006) have been doing this for years.
Reaching orbit requires larger, more powerful rockets, which are more expensive and time-consuming to manufacture. But the main advantage is that there’s a much bigger market for companies wanting to send satellites and other technology into orbit than just floating around in a spacecraft for a few minutes.
Over the company’s lifetime, SpaceX has launched more than 300 rockets into orbit, ULA 155 and Rocket Lab 45. By comparison, Blue Origin has yet to launch a single rocket into orbit, although the company’s New Glenn orbital rocket has a planned first launch later this year.
Mr. Bezos’ company announced in 2016 that it would build New Glenn and plan for its first launch in 2020. However, the company has suffered a series of setbacks that have delayed its launch.
These delays could cost Blue Origin millions of dollars in service flights that companies are willing to pay to get its technology off the ground. For example, ULA says on its website that its rockets have “placed more than $70 billion in satellite assets into orbit.”
However, Blue Origin has contracts with NASA, the U.S. Space Force, and Amazon for flight-ready New Glenn rockets.
Bezos says Blue Origin’s culture isn’t fast enough
Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000. Associated Press/Ted S. Warren
Part of Blue Origin’s slow pace lies in the company’s work culture, which Bezos is seeking to change.
“We’re going to be very good at taking the right technology risks, making quick decisions, being bold about those things, and having the right culture to support that,” Bezos told Fridman. ” he said.
The launch scheduled for Sunday is a step in the right direction for Blue Origin. While he may be playing catch-up now, Bezos wants to get the company off the ground and told Fridman that’s one of the reasons he stepped down as Amazon’s CEO. .
“I took over the CEO role, mainly because it allowed me to spend more time on Blue Origin and add more energy and urgency. We need to move faster and ” he said. He said.
Blue Origin did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.