S1 Ep:3 Space Titan

How successful is Blue Origin?

How successful is Blue Origin? 
(SRC:-Science time, Getty image)

Mission

We're committed to building a road to space so our children can build the future.

Introduction

Blue Origin, LLC is an American privately-funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles. Let's found out How successful is Blue Origin?

Aircrafts

Charon

Blue Origin's first flight test vehicle, called Charon after Pluto's moon, was powered by four vertically mounted Rolls-Royce Viper Mk. 301 jet engines rather than rockets. The low-altitude vehicle was developed to test autonomous guidance and control technologies, and the processes that the company would use to develop its later rockets. Charon made its only test flight at Moses Lake, Washington on 5 March 2005. It flew to an altitude of 96 m (316 ft) before returning for a controlled landing near the liftoff point. As of 2016, Charon is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

Charon on display at the
Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

Goddard

The next test vehicle, named Goddard (also known as PM1), first flew on 13 November 2006. The flight was successful. A test flight for 2 December never launched. According to Federal Aviation Administration records, two further flights were performed by Goddard.

Payload

New Shepherd

Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital spaceflight system is composed of two vehicles: a crew capsule accommodating three or more astronauts launched by a rocket booster. The two vehicles lift-off together and are designed to separate during flight. After separation, the booster is designed to return to Earth to perform a vertical landing while the crew capsule follows a separate trajectory, returning under parachutes for a land touchdown. Both vehicles are intended for recovery and re-use. New Shepard is controlled entirely by onboard computers. In addition to flying astronauts, New Shepard is intended to provide frequent opportunities for researchers to fly experiments into suborbital space.

New Shepard landing with
parachutes on 29 April 2015

New Glenn

The New Glenn is a 7-meter (23 ft)-diameter two-stage orbital launch vehicle that is expected to launch in 2022. The design work on the vehicle began in 2012. The high-level specifications for the vehicle were publicly announced in September 2016. The first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 engines, also designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. The first stage is reusable, just like the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it. The second stage is intended to be expendable. Blue Origin intends to launch the rocket from the historic Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36, and manufacture the rockets at a new facility on nearby land in Exploration Park. Acceptance testing of the BE-4 engines will also be done in Florida.

New Glenn with comparison

Funding

By July 2014, Jeff Bezos had invested over US$500 million into Blue Origin. By March 2016, the vast majority of funding to support technology development and operations at Blue Origin has come from Jeff Bezos' private investment, but Bezos had declined to publicly state the amount before 2017 when an annual amount was stated publicly – as of April 2017, Bezos was selling approximately US$1 billion in Amazon stock each year to privately finance Blue Origin. Blue Origin will receive up to $500 million from the United States Air Force over the period 2019 - 2024 if they are a finalist in the Launch Services Agreement competition, of which they have received at least $181 million so far. 

Blue Origin has also completed work for NASA on several small development contracts, receiving total funding of US$25.7 million by 2013. However, the U.S. Space Force on Dec. 31, 2020, officially terminated launch technology partnerships signed in October 2018 with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, as neither company had won a National Security Space Launch procurement contract in the meantime. As a result of the lost contract, management has pushed the New Glenn launch to late 2022 as part of a "re-baselined" effort to organize resources for future launches.

Collaborations

With NASA

Blue Origin has contracted to do work for NASA on several development efforts. The company was awarded US$3.7 million in funding in 2009 by NASA through a Space Act Agreement under the first Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program for the development of concepts and technologies to support future human spaceflight operations. NASA co-funded risk-mitigation activities related to ground testing of  'pusher' escape system, that lowers cost by being reusable and enhances safety by avoiding the jettison event of a traditional 'tractor' Launch Escape System, and an innovative composite pressure vessel cabin that both reduces weight and increases the safety of astronauts.

 This was later revealed to be a part of a larger system, designed for a biconic capsule, that would be launched atop an Atlas V rocket. On 8 November 2010, it was announced that Blue Origin had completed all milestones under its CCDev Space Act Agreement.

With United Launch Alliance

In September 2018, it was announced that Blue Origin's BE-4 engine had been selected by United Launch Alliance to provide first-stage rocket engines for ULA's next-generation booster design, the Vulcan rocket. The BE-4 engine is set to replace the Russian-built RD-180 currently powering ULA's Atlas 5.

With Military Agencies

Blue Origin cooperated with Boeing in Phase 1 of the DARPA XS-1 spaceplane program. Blue Origin was reportedly in contract talks with the United States Space Force as well according to Lt. General David Thompson. However, such talks ceased as of December 31, 2020.

Conclusion

In the private sector, these agencies like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX are on the verge of getting through a major breakthrough and might soon have a way to take humans to Mars. There are even possibilities that they make us stay there as a new home. The competition among them is going as rampant as ever. While Blue Origin might even come up as a dark horse in this competition and emerge victoriously. Blue Origin is made their goal to make their aircraft reusable, more comfortable, and efficient. So we can conclude that Success can be compared in different suspect so Blue origin could be successful

In the next episode, we will be going through another space giant which is famous for sending the first humans to the moon.