Blue Origin completes first round of launchpad/New Glenn tanking tests

Link here. In the past week or so Blue Origin has done three tanking tests of its assembled engineering test rocket, simulating fueling of a New Glenn rocket on the launchpad, and now intends to roll that test vehicle back to its rocket assembly building.

From here, it is most likely that the rocket will be prepared for the next round of testing, which will include a static fire of the seven first-stage BE-4 engines. This test will mark the first time that Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines will ignite while integrated with a New Glenn first stage. It will also be the first time that the new launch pad supports an engine firing.

The company continues to aim for a first test launch of New Glenn before the end of the year, and these tests strengthen the likelihood that this schedule is realistic.

Blue Origin is targeting a first unmanned landing of its manned lunar lander in 2025

Blue Origin's Blue Moon manned lunar lander
An early visualization of Blue Moon

According to one Blue Origin official, the company is now targeting its first unmanned landing of its manned lunar lander, Blue Moon, for sometime in 2025, far sooner than previously expected.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is aiming to send an uncrewed lander to the surface of the moon in the next 12 to 16 months, according to the executive in charge of the development program. John Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin, provided an update on the company’s moon lander program on CBS’ “60 Minutes” news program on Sunday. “We’re expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today,” Couluris said. “I understand I’m saying that publicly, but that’s what our team is aiming towards.”

Blue Moon is shown in the graphic to the right. Though being built to provide NASA a second manned lander in addtion to SpaceX’s Starship, this first mission will simply bring cargo to the surface, as a test of the lander itself.

If Blue Origin can keep even somewhat close to this schedule, we will likely have two manned moon landers doing test flights at almost the same time.

A sidebar: Note the lander’s height, as well as the narrow footprint of its landing legs. New graphics of this lander from Blue Origin show the same high center of gravity with an even narrower footprint for the legs. One wonders why. Wouldn’t it make sense to have those legs deploy outward more?

This issue applies also to SpaceX’s Starship, which will also have a high center of gravity. When SpaceX’s rockets land on Earth (both Falcon 9 boosters and Starship), most of their fuel is gone so the bulk of the mass is near the bottom where the engines are, even though the boosters stand very high. On the Moon however these vehicles will be landing heavily loaded, with cargo and fuel. This raises a stability question that was illustrated sadly by the tipping over recently of Intuitive Machines Odysseus lander.

I am not an engineer, so I admit that my off the cuff analysis here is very questionable. Nonetheless, one wonders.

Complete New Glenn test prototype now vertical on launchpad

New Glenn test vehicle on launchpad

For the first time, after more than a decade of development, a complete two-stage New Glenn test vehicle is now vertical on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, ready for launchpad tests in preparation for what Blue Origin hopes will be a first launch later this year.

The journey to the pad began in December when New Glenn’s first-stage modules were transported from our factory to the Integration Facility nine miles away. The tests will conclude in the coming weeks following several demonstrations of cryogenic fluid loading, pressure control, and the vehicle’s venting systems. Our launch pad and ground systems are complete and will be activated for the first time during the test campaign.

If successful, New Glenn would be somewhat competitive with Falcon Heavy, and would give the U.S. a third company, after ULA, capable of competing directly with SpaceX. This of course assumes Blue Origin doesn’t buy ULA, which has been rumored.

Status of ULA sale offer, as seen by bankers

Link here. The article outlines the perspective of the banking community to the sale, relative to the three potential known purchasers, Blue Origin, Cerberus, and Textron.

[M]ost contended that a deal should have been finalized years ago, as SpaceX now dominates the global rocket launch market and has grabbed share from ULA’s best customer, the U.S. military. The sticky part of a sale, those bankers said, is the need for new ownership that can both streamline ULA and invest in further innovation.

The price is another sticking point: Bankers suggested ULA’s owners initially sought more than $4 billion for the company, but the consensus of a reasonable winning bid was in the range of $2 billion to $2.5 billion. As one banker emphasized to me, there’s more competition among heavy launch vehicles like Vulcan today than there was a decade ago, and the rocket’s only just getting going now.

First, it appears that Textron has already dropped out. Second, the reason the sale was delayed was solely the fault of Blue Origin, as delays in delivering its BE-4 rocket engine to ULA caused the first launch of the Vulcan rocket to be delayed years. The sale couldn’t happen until that rocket was proven flightworthy.

The analysis between Blue Origin and Cerberus makes it hard picking either as the likely winner. It suggests that while Blue Origin, as a rocket company, might be able to more quickly take advanage of the ULA’s assets, Cerberus would be a better managerial fit, more able to trim the fat and make ULA more competitive. For sure, Blue Origin shows no ability to trim fat or work fast.

The bankers also indicated a dark horse could still appear.

Hat tip to BtB’s stringer Jay.

Space Force issues contract to assess New Glenn rocket for military launches

The Space Force has awarded Blue Origin an $18 million contract to assess that company’s new New Glenn rocket in order to certify it eventually for military launches.

The Space Force awarded Blue Origin nearly $18 million for “National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 early integration studies to assess launch vehicle trajectory and mission design, coupled launch loads, and integrated thermal environments to inform compatibility between launch vehicles and space vehicles for missions planned in fiscal years 2025 and 2026.”

The NSSL Phase 3 procurement is divided into two lanes: Lane 1 caters to lower-risk missions to lower orbits, while Lane 2 focuses on demanding missions to higher orbits, requiring certified launch vehicles and full mission assurance. The latter is where Blue Origin, with its New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, could aim to challenge incumbents SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.

Bids for NSSL Phase 3 were submitted in December. Launch services contracts are expected to be awarded later this year for missions to be flown starting in late 2025 through 2029 or beyond.

The Pentagon wants to certify a third launch company for these higher-mass, higher-orbit missions, and New Glenn is powerful enough to provide that service, once it begins operational. This study puts Blue Origin on a path to get that certification.

After years of delays at both ULA and Blue Origin that left almost the entire launch market in the hands of SpaceX, it now looks like SpaceX is finally going to get some competition.

First two stages of New Glenn assembled for the first time

After years of delays, Blue Origin announced yesterday that it has finally joined the first and second stages of its orbital New Glenn rocket, in preparation for its planned first launch later this year.

The stages remain horizontal inside Blue Origin’s assembly facility at Cape Canaveral, where engineers continue to check them out.

New Glenn’s launch was originally supposed to be in 2020. Problems with its first stage BE-4 engine put it (as well as ULA’s Vulcan rocket) four years behind schedule. The evidence now suggests that those problems were badly acerbated by the poor leadership of Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s CEO from 2017 to 2023, who apparently refused to spend money on test engines and the additional hardware necessary to test the engine to figure out what was wrong. Smith also appeared to slow all other work down in numerous ways as well as antagonize many at the company, causing a lot of high level engineers over time to flee.

Almost to the day Smith left last year Blue Origin has appeared to come to life. If so, this bodes well for both its future as well as that of the entire American rocket industry. New Glenn is a very powerful rocket, capable of lifting 50 tons to low Earth orbit, making it comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. Its first stage is also designed to be reuseable, landing on a drone ship like the Falcon 9. If successful it will thus be a very capable competitor to SpaceX.

The company is aiming for an August launch. Keep your fingers crossed.

Blue Origin moves first stage of its New Glenn rocket from factory to launchpad hanger

In what might be the first step in assemblying Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket for the first time (followed by a launch), the company yesterday transported the rocket’s first stage from its factory to its launchpad hanger.

Transported by a series of multiwheeled carriages and an arching structure, the 189-foot-tall first stage for what will be a 320-foot-tall rocket when fully assembled traveled horizontally on a 22-mile trip from the New Glenn factory in Merritt Island through Kennedy Space Center over to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station where Blue Origin has a hangar and launch pad at Launch Complex 36.

Jeff Bezos has said the company plans that first launch before the end of this year, though the company has been making this same promise now for the last three years, and is years behind schedule. What makes this promise different however is that this time we are seeing actual hardware moving towards the launchpad.

The article also gives a rough update on the company’s effort to manufacture the many BE-4 rocket engines needed for New Glenn (7) and ULA’s Vulcan rocket (2). The two engines for the next Vulcan launch in April are presently undergoing final testing at Blue Origin’s test facility in Texas, and the company says it is about to ramp up production. It thus appears that getting enough engines built is still the main obstacle to launch. We shall finally know later this year if Blue Origin has solved this problem.

Amazon files to have shareholder lawsuit dismissed

On December 11, 2023 Amazon requested dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit against it for acting in bad faith by excluding SpaceX in its initial launch contracts with ULA, Arianespace, and Blue Origin to put its Kuiper constellation of satellites into orbit.

The lawsuit claimed that the board performed little diligence on the proposed contracts to launch the 3,236-satellite constellation with the Ariane 6, New Glenn and Vulcan Centaur rockets. The combined contracts were, it stated, the second largest capital expenditure in Amazon’s history at the time, trailing only its $13.7 billion acquisition of grocer Whole Foods.

The lawsuit stated that the board and its audit committee spent “barely an hour” reviewing those contracts, including those that would go to Blue Origin and ULA. Blue Origin is owned by Amazon founder and former chief executive Jeff Bezos, while ULA has a contract with Blue Origin to use BE-4 engines on its Vulcan rocket. The suit estimated that nearly 45% of the value of the contracts goes to Blue Origin either directly or through the BE-4 engine contract with ULA.

Amazon’s call for dismissal disputes these claims, stating that the board spent far more time on the issue, and then documents this. Interestingly, it makes no mention of the recent additional launch contract Amazon signed with SpaceX on December 3, 2023, but it is obvious that this filing was timed to occur afterward in order to strengthen Amazon’s case.

Amazon’s response (available at the link above) is heavily redacted, so some of the company’s claims are difficult to assess. For example, if the board did consider the issue of launch contractors properly, the subject of using SpaceX should have come up and been discussed at length. The redactions make it impossible to determine if this was so. If anything, what can be read suggests SpaceX was dismissed as an option far too quickly.

A tour of Blue Origin’s Huntsville Machine Shop & Manufacturing Facility

Video below, which is heavily focused on machining and machine shop work. The facility, the Machine Shop & Manufacturing Facility in Huntsville, appears to build the BE-3U engine (to be used for the New Glenn upper stage), though I thought some of the engines shown could be BE-4’s. I hope my readers can help clarify this.

While this video actually reveals very little solid information, one important fact was disclosed near the end, when the tour reached the final engine assembly point. There the Blue Origin employee mentioned that they are assembling three engines at this facility. Considering facility’s size and the number of engines that will be needed once New Glenn begins flying, I was not impressed. Does it really take this much space and equipment to only build three rocket engines? Am I wrong?

Hat tip to reader John Harman, who is himself the owner of an aerospace manufacturing company.

Amazon signs launch contract with SpaceX

Amazon on December 1, 2023 announced it has signed a three-launch contract with SpaceX to place its Kuiper satellites into orbit, supplementing the launch contracts it presently has with ULA, Arianespace, and Blue Origin. From the Amazon press release:

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage launch vehicle designed for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond, and it has completed more than 270 successful launches to date. Project Kuiper has contracted three Falcon 9 launches, and these missions are targeted to lift off beginning in mid-2025.

In 2022 Amazon had signed contracts with the other three launch companies, with ULA getting 38 Vulcan launches (in addition to 9 already signed for its Atlas-5), Arianespace getting 18 Ariane-6 launches, and Blue Origin getting 12 New Glenn launches.

The problem however is that, except for the Atlas-5, none of these rockets has yet completed its first flight. Since Amazon’s FCC license requires it to get half of its constellation of 3,200+ satellites into orbit by 2026 or face penalties, the uncertainty of these rockets has probably forced Amazon management to consider SpaceX, despite likely hostility to such a deal from Jeff Bezos (owner of Blue Origin and founder of Amazon).

Amazon management also probably decided to sign this deal because of a lawsuit filed in September 2023 by company stockholders, accusing the management of neglience because it never even considered SpaceX in earlier contract negotiations while giving favoritism to Bezos’s company Blue Origin. At that time Amazon had already paid these launch companies about $1.7 billion, with Blue Origin getting $585 million, though not one rocket has yet launched, with Blue Origin showing no evidence that a launch coming anytime soon.

The impression of a conflict of interest by Amazon’s board of directors appeared very obvious. This new SpaceX contract weakens that accusation.

More important the deal will help Amazon actually get its satellites into orbit. It appears that reality is finally biting at Amazon, and its management has realized that the three companies they have been relying on might not be up to the job (especially Blue Origin).

Former Blue Origin engineer sues the company for wrongful termination

A former Blue Origin engineer, Craig Stoker, has filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming it fired him because he had reported unsafe conditions caused largely because the company’s then CEO, Bob Smith, interfered with operations and insisted these unsafe conditions be hidden.

According to the complaint, Blue Origin’s contract with ULA requires the company to communicate issues that could impact rocket engine delivery one year in advance; Stoker wanted to tell ULA the engines would likely be delayed. [Ed. Delays that ended up actually happening.]

But Smith had allegedly instructed Stoker not to share these production and delivery issues with ULA.

Ultimately, after an internal investigation, Blue Origin HR concluded that Smith did not create a hostile work environment, nor violate any company policies. Stoker objected to this conclusion; the complaint says that Stoker later learned that no one from the engine program was interviewed as part of the investigation.

The complaint also notes that

Smith’s behavior caused employees “to frequently violate safety procedures and processes in order to meet unreasonable deadlines.” Smith would “explode” when issues would arise, generating a hostile work environment, the complaint says. Stoker sent a follow-up email to the two VPs — Linda Cova, VP of the engines business unit, and Mary Plunkett, senior VP of human resources — that included a formal complaint against Smith.

According to the complaint, Smith then “spearheaded” Stoker’s termination because of his refusal to sweep the safety issues under the rug.

If the accusations of this lawsuit prove true, it provides another piece of strong evidence explaining why Blue Origin went from a productive company to an utter failure after Bob Smith took over in 2017.

Update on Blue Origin activity at Cape Canaveral

Link here. Much of the activity the article describes has to do with preparing for a first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, suggesting that it might finally take place in 2024 as presently planned.

In fact, the activity also suggests that the company intends to attempt to recover its first stage from a landing ship in the ocean on that first flight.

In early October, a large Liebherr mobile crane was delivered to Port Canaveral to support Blue Origin’s continuously growing presence on the Space Coast. Once New Glenn begins flying, this crane will assist recovery operations by lifting the 57.5-meter-tall first stage from the landing vessel and onto shore.

More recently on Nov. 27, a large jig on a barge was towed into Port Canaveral and proceeded to be offloaded by Blue Origin’s new crane. This custom-made structure appears to be a stand to support New Glenn first stages after being offloaded from its landing vessel. Various work platforms will allow crews to inspect the boosters in different locations before the booster itself is transported back to the factory, or the future refurbishment facility which is still yet to be built.

It also appears the company has built a full scale test version of New Glenn to allow testing of all operations prior to launch.

Keep your fingers crossed. With former CEO Bob Smith gone, Blue Origin might finally be coming back alive at last.

Blue Origin begins third major expansion of Huntsville facility

Blue Origin has been issued a $8.4 million building permit by local Huntsville authorities as part of the third major expansion of its rocket-manufacturing facility there.

According to the report, of the 377 permits issued so far in October and November, this was the largest. All three expansions have occurred in the past three years.

The article however includes this ridiculous statement:

The aerospace company owned by Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin has emerged as one of the top commercial spaceflight companies as the country has placed a renewed effort on returning to the moon and eventually to Mars.

How could Blue Origin be “one of the top commercial spaceflight companies” when it has still not launched anything into orbit? Even the tiny rocket startup Astra, now on the verge of bankruptcy, put more mass into orbit than Blue Origin. Everyone has, since the mass Blue Origin has put into orbit so far equals a nice fat zero.

This expansion however does suggest that something positive might finally be happening at the company. With the removal of Bob Smith as CEO and Jeff Bezos now living in Florida and closer to the action it could be that the continuing string of non-accomplishment that has made Blue Origin a bit of a joke in the space industry might possibly be ending.

We shall have to wait and see, however.

Sierra Space shakes up its staffing

Sierra Space yesterday did a major staffing shake up, laying off 165 workers while shifting 150 with secruity clearances from its parent company Sierra Nevada.

Sierra Space this week shipped the first Dream Chaser, named Tenacity, for pre-launch testing at NASA’s Armstrong facility in Ohio. The layoffs began soon after, the Sierra Space spokesperson said, noting the company conducted a surge in hiring this year to complete work on the Tenacity spacecraft.

With Tenacity shipped, Sierra Space’s spokesperson said the company is realigning to focus on the operations phase of Dream Chaser’s first mission, as well as on classified national security work. The latter part of Sierra Space’s realignment includes adding nearly 150 employees with security clearances from Sierra Nevada Corp., the aerospace and defense contractor owned by Fatih and Eren Ozmen, which the space company was spun out of two years ago. Sierra Space’s spokesperson said the company is creating a national security space team to work on several classified contracts.

This shift suggests that at least in the short run, Sierra is putting more focus on future military contracts rather than its civilian manned space projects like its LIFE space module (for the Orbital Reef space station) and future manner versions of its Dream Chaser mini-shuttle. I wonder if the company is having more internal doubts about Orbital Reef and its main partner, Blue Origin. Unlike the stations being built by Axiom and Voyager Space, which have already garnered contracts from both national and international customers, Orbital Reef has not done the same. There could be great doubts in the space community it will be built because of Blue Origin’s absymal record for building anything.

Amazon’s first two Kuiper satellites in orbit worked exactly as planned

Amazon announced today that its first two Kuiper satellites, launched into orbit by ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket on October 6, 2023, have worked exactly as planned, thus allowing the company to begin building operational satellites.

With the prototypes’ testing in space now complete, Badyal said Amazon plans to begin building the first production Kuiper satellites in December and launch the first satellites for its network in the “latter part of the first half” of 2024. Badyal emphasized that Amazon wasn’t sure what performance to expect from the prototype satellites, since “you don’t know how well it’s going to work in space.”

“They’re working brilliantly,” Badyal said.

The need of Amazon to start launching lots of satellites next year — in order to meet its FCC license requirements to put half of its 3,000+ constellation in orbit by 2026 — puts great pressure on ULA, Blue Origin, and Arianespace to get their new but as yet unlaunchd rockets operating. All three have big launch contracts with Amazon, but none presently appear to have the capability to meet the demands of those contracts.

The reshuffling of Blue Origin’s management continues

With the announcement yesterday that another high level executive was leaving the company — the third in less than a month — Blue Origin does appear to be making major changes in its management as well as its entire organizational structure.

Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith told employees in an email on Friday that Mike Eilola, the company’s senior vice president of operations since 2021, “is leaving the company for personal reasons” on Nov. 3 and will have his unit split into two new organizations.

Eilola’s departure follows plans announced last month by Bezos to replace Smith, who has been Blue Origin’s CEO since 2017, with longtime Amazon executive Dave Limp by the end of the year. And Brent Sherwood, the head of what had been the company’s research and development unit, will depart next month, Reuters has reported.

This is not the only management restructuring. It has also shifted its lunar lander project into its own division, as well as created a new separate division for developing in-space robotic servicing and orbital tug products.

It finally appears that Jeff Bezos is taking action to get his company working again, after more than a half decade of non-achievement since Bob Smith took over in 2017. Hopefully these changes finally will produce results.

Blue Origin announces another big project, with few details

Blue Origin has now announced another proposed big project, dubbed Blue Ring, which will put a platform into orbit as part of a new division focused on in-space services.

Blue Ring serves commercial and government customers and can support a variety of missions in medium Earth orbit out to the cislunar region and beyond. The platform provides end-to-end services that span hosting, transportation, refueling, data relay, and logistics, including an “in-space” cloud computing capability. Blue Ring can host payloads of more than 3,000 kg and provides unprecedented delta-V capabilities and mission flexibility.

The company did not reveal many details about the size of this orbital platform, nor did it reveal a time schedule. It appears to be an effort by the company to enter the orbital tug/satellite repair market, though the announcement is so vague it is hard to determine what exactly is being proposed.

The list of big ambitious Blue Origin projects is long and impressive: the New Glenn reusuable rocket, the Orbital Reef space station, the Blue Moon manned lunar lander, and now Blue Ring. However, since none of these projects has yet launched, and the first is years behind schedule, no one should put much money on this new project ever seeing fruition. Right now Blue Origin needs to actually fly something before anyone should take seriously any proposal it puts forth.

Orbital Reef partnership between Blue Origin and Sierra Space in trouble

According to anonymous sources, CNBC reports that the partnership between Blue Origin and Sierra Space to build the private commerical Orbital Reef space station is possibly breaking up.

The companies announced Orbital Reef as a co-led project in 2021, but updates about the project dried up in the past year. The pair of private space companies are now navigating a potential end to the Orbital Reef partnership, according to three people who spoke to CNBC about the situation.

Those people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic matters, emphasized that discussions are ongoing and described the situation as fluid. But other development projects with more significant current contracts – such as Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander and Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane – have taken higher priority for both companies, those people said.

To readers of Behind the Black, this possible break-up is not a surprise. In June Sierra’s announcement of its own independent space station based on its LIFE modules suggested it had its own doubts about Orbital Reef. Then in August, when Sierra announced a partnership with Redwire to launch LIFE as an independent station, I wrote this:

What struck me about this deal is the shrinking mention of Blue Origin. Originally that company was listed as one of the major players in building this private space station, dubbed Orbital Reef, in which LIFE is only the first module. In the past year however its participation seems less and less significant in every subsequent press release. It appears to still be part of the project, but it is Sierra Space that is leading the effort, and appears to be making things happen.

But then, the track record of Blue Origin is to not make things happen. It could very well be that events are once again overtaking it. Sierra Space can’t wait for Blue Origin to slowly get its act together. It is finding ways to get things done, even if that means Blue Origin gets left behind.

Today’s CNBC story reinforces this conclusion. So does its timing with the removal of Blue Origin’s CEO, Bob Smith, earlier this week. It could be that the failure of Blue Origin in the Orbital Reef partnership was the final straw for Jeff Bezos.

The problem for NASA in this is that the agency awarded a $130 million contract to the Orbital Reef partnership, with Blue Origin listed as the lead contractor which controls the contract. If that partnership ends, that contract must get renegotiated or cancelled, or gets transferred from Blue Origin to Sierra Space (the most likely outcome).

More than a year after the New Shepard accident, the FAA finally closes its investigation

It appears that Elon Musk and SpaceX is not the only space company being stymied by the new heavy-handed regulation coming from the federal bureaucracy since Joe Biden took power. In a statement issued yesterday, the FAA announced that is had finally closed its own investigation into the New Shepard accident that occurred on September 12, 2022, more than a year after it occurred. More significantly, the FAA also said that despite completing its investigation, it is still denying Blue Origin a launch license to resume suborbital flights.

The FAA required Blue Origin implement 21 corrective actions to prevent mishap reoccurrence, including redesign of engine and nozzle components to improve structural performance during operation as well as organizational changes. … The closure of the mishap investigation does not signal an immediate resumption of New Shepard launches. Blue Origin must implement all corrective actions that impact public safety and receive a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next New Shepard launch.

It once again must be stated that there is no one at the FAA truly qualified to make such recommendations. These are paper-pushers, even if they have some engineering background. The FAA must rely on Blue Origin’s own engineers to determine these issues, as well figure out what must be done to fix them.

While Blue Origin’s own corporate culture — terribly slow at accomplishing anything — is certainly at major factor in these delays, it appears the FAA has not been helping. Blue Origin had announced the completion of its own investigation in March, six months ago, with the same conclusions as the FAA investigation completed now. Why did it take the FAA six more months to close its own investigation?

Moreover, the FAA’s statement makes it clear that Blue Origin has not yet satisfied the government’s demands, even though the investigation is closed. For Blue Origin to have still not implemented the corrections is to be expected, considering its slow methods of operation, but this statement — similar to the statement issued in connection with closing its investigation of the SpaceX’s Superheavy/Starship test flight — suggests a new and unprecedented policy at the FAA, treating all space-related incidents as if the rockets and spacecraft are no different than airplanes. First it will take its time issuing its own investigation, then it will take its time approving the corrections any company implements, just to make sure all the “i”s are dotted and the “t”‘s are crossed.

It is also possible that the FAA has been ordered to implement this new heavy-handed policy by higher ups in the White House on all companies, in order to hide the political motivations that have been targeting SpaceX and Elon Musk.

Regardless, this new strict regulation likely means we should expect a serious slowdown in the rebirth of commercial space. The renaissance of achievement by private enterprise in the past decade in space could be ending.

Bob Smith out at Blue Origin

Though this change probably comes four years late, the CEO of Blue Origin, Bob Smith, announced today that he is resigning from the company, effective at the end of the year.

The company’s incredibly slow implementation of all of its projects, which begun when Smith took over in 2017, has made it something of joke punchline in the space business. Suborbital test flights of its New Shepard spacecraft went from almost monthly test flights to none for years. Its orbital New Glenn rocket is four years behind schedule, and it is still doubtful it will fly next year. And the company’s BE-4 rocket engine was also years behind schedule and even now has caused enormous delays for its one outside customer, ULA, delaying the launch of its Vulcan rocket by at least four years. As noted at the link:

Smith brought a traditional aerospace mindset into a company that had hitherto been guided by a new space vision, leading to a high turnover rate. And Blue Origin remains significantly underwater, financially. It is likely that Bezos is still providing about $2 billion a year to support the company’s cash needs.

Crucially, as Blue Origin meandered under Smith’s tenure, SpaceX soared, launching hundreds of rockets and thousands of satellites. Smith, clearly, was not the leader Blue Origin needed to make the company more competitive with SpaceX in launch and other spaceflight activities. It became something of a parlor game in the space industry to guess when Bezos would finally get around to firing Smith.

Smith will be replaced by Dave Limp, who had been Amazon’s VP for devices and services until last month. Whether he can get this company moving again is still an unknown, considering he was also involved in launching Amazon’s Kuiper satellite constellation, the development of which has been as slow and uninspiring as all of Blue Origin’s projects.

Update on Blue Origin’s New Glenn

Link here. Based on this detailed update, the long delayed launch of Blue Origin’s orbital New Glenn rocket appears to finally be visible on the distant horizon.

Most of the work described involves building supporting facilities, such as a new building for refurbishing rockets after launch. However, this quote suggests the company might finally be getting close to doing something real:

During a panel at the World Satellite Business Week, Blue Origin’s Jarrett Jones stated Blue Origin has four boosters in various stages of production, and testing is going well.

In addition to the production of New Glenn, Blue Origin has continued to prepare LC-36 [the launchpad] to support the testing of the hardware currently being manufactured. In recent months, Blue Origin has conducted a number of tests with both the main transporter erector, which will be used to support a fully stacked New Glenn, as well as a smaller transporter erector, which appears to be used to test New Glenn’s second-stage on the launch pad. A second-stage simulator has already been observed on this transporter erector.

Though encouraging, the article at the link still left me with a feeling that a lot of work is being done on everything but the rocket itself. Hopefully this feeling will dissipate soon with the appearance of that first rocket on the launchpad. Right now Blue Origin officials have said they are aiming for that first launch next year, but they have made that same promise now for three straight years.

Virgin Galactic sets Oct 5th launch date for its fifth commercial suborbital flight in ’23

Virgin Galactic today announced that the launch window for its fifth commercial suborbital flight this year and ninth overall will open on Oct 5th.

The flight will include three private passengers, two Americans and one Pakistani, and a crew of five Virgin Galactic employees.

At this point I don’t consider these suborbital flights to be very newsworthy. However, I decided to highlight this news release because of its stark contrast with Blue Origin. Even before last year’s mishap that grounded Blue Origin’s own suborbital spacecraft, New Shepard, it never flew this frequently. Virgin Galactic took far too long to begin flying (two decades), but it does appear that is now wasting no time trying to catch up.

Blue Origin meanwhile continues to drift along, accomplishing little and appearing to do even less with time.

Update on the status of Vulcan, Ariane-6, and New Glenn

Link here. This excellent article is focused on whether these three new rockets, none of which has yet completed its first test flight, will be able to meet their launch contract obligations with Amazon, which needs to launch at least 1,600 satellites of its Kuiper broadband constellation by July 2026 to meet its FCC license requirements. Those requirements also obligate Amazon to have the full constellation of about 3,200 satellites in orbit by July 2029.

The launch contracts to these three untried rockets was the largest such contract ever issued, involving 83 launches and billions of dollars.

To sum up where things stand in terms of the first test launch of each rocket:
» Read more

New Shepard remains grounded, a year after launch failure

More than five months after completing its mishap investigation of the New Shepard launch failure one year ago, Blue Origin’s suborbital spacecraft remains grounded, with no clear indication when it will fly again.

In March, Blue Origin announced the results of its anomaly investigation: The nozzle on the first stage’s single BE-3PM engine suffered a “thermo-structural failure,” which caused a thrust misalignment and brought the mission to a premature end.

In its March 24 announcement, Blue Origin said that it had begun implementing some corrective actions, “including design changes to the combustion chamber and operating parameters, which have reduced engine nozzle bulk and hot-streak temperatures.” The company also stressed that it expected to return to flight “soon,” with a re-launch of those same 36 research payloads.

Almost six months later, that “soon” has translated into “someday.” It seems the slow pace of everything Blue Origin does has now taken over its one successful operational product. It has released no information about a new flight schedule, or even the present status of the spacecraft.

The result? Even though Blue Origin was flying commercial suborbital flights regularly about two years earlier that Virgin Galactic, the latter company has now completed more flights. This slow pace is not how a commercial company driven to earn profits and compete successfully operates. In the end it drives away customers, while ceding market share to competitors.

Targeted layoffs at Blue Origin

It appears that the upper management at Blue Origin has finally realized that a large Human Resource (HR) department contributes no real productive quality to a company, and in fact usually acts to reduce the company’s productive capabilities. According to reports from some company employees, it has begun to downsize this division.

Micah Thornton, a production control specialist at Blue Origin, wrote on LinkedIn that “several people from the Blue Origin Space Human Resource/Talent Acquisition team have been let go due to downsizing.” Several other employees wrote that they were laid off on Tuesday and are seeking new roles elsewhere.

This could be a very good sign for Blue Origin, or it could mean nothing. Other than periodically flying its reusable New Shepard suborbital spacecraft, the company’s main accomplishment since its formation more than two decades ago has been to establish a reputation as an unfocused operation unable to get its most important projects completed on time. Having a big HR department likely helps explain that history, and getting it reduced suggests management might be trying to get the company focused on its real mission.

Or not. HR employees are not engineers. Shifting them to other positions (which it appears the company is doing) simply rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic.

We shall have to wait and see what transpires next. But then, that is all we have been doing in connection with Blue Origin for the past seven years.

Amazon investors sue company for not considering SpaceX as potential launch provider

In a lawsuit filed by Amazon investors, they claim that the company’s decision to give major and expensive launch contracts to Arianespace, ULA, and Blue Origin to put its planned 3,200 Kuiper satellite constellation into orbit but never even consider using SpaceX indicates a failure at due diligence for the shareholders as well as a possible conflict of interest.

The plaintiff’s biggest concern was the decision to give Blue Origin the contract.

The suit, filed by Amazon shareholders the Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund, alleges that the board spent less than 40 minutes approving the launch agreements for Amazon’s Project Kuiper mega-constellation, while not even considering leading launch company (and Blue Origin rival) SpaceX. “Amazon’s directors likely devoted barely an hour before blindly signing off on funneling […] Amazon’s money to Bezos’ unproven, struggling rocket company,” the suit says. The plaintiffs say the board failed to protect the negotiation process “from Bezos’ glaring conflict of interest.”

It appears these investors might have a point, as so far Amazon has paid these launch companies about $1.7 billion, with Blue Origin getting $585 million, though not one satellite has yet launched. Moreover, it appears from all counts that it will be very difficult for these companies — especially Blue Origin — to complete the required missions necessary to get into orbit half of Amazon’s constellation by 2026, as required by its FCC license.

August 24, 2023 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

  • Perseverance science team touts rover’s 19th core sample
  • If you listen closely to the two scientists in the video, they really can only guess about much of this geology, since Perseverance does not have the same geological capabilites as Curiosity. They can make some superficial analysis of the rocks, but the more detailed work will have to wait until those core samples are returned to Earth. Curiosity however can not only drill, but it has equipment to analyze those drill samples itself, there. While Curiosity can’t do what an Earth lab would do, it does it now. With Perseverance we will have to wait a decade or more to get to the samples.

ULA officially admits first Vulcan launch is delayed to end of year

Though the announcement was not news or unexpected, ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno yesterday officially confirmed that the first Vulcan launch will not occur before the fourth quarter of this year, not this summer as hoped.

In a call with reporters July 13, Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, said the changes to the Centaur upper stage stemmed from an investigation into a test mishap in March, where hydrogen leaked from a Centaur test article and ignited, damaging both the stage and the test rig. The company announced June 24 that it would delay the launch to make “minor reinforcements” to the Centaur.

Bruno also poo-pooed the significance of a failure of a Blue Origin BE-4 engine during a static fire test in mid-June, a failure that had been kept secret until this week.

“This doesn’t indict the qualification at all,” he said, noting that BE-4 engines have more than 26,000 seconds of cumulative runtime. “We’re very confident in the design and the workmanship of the assets that have passed acceptance. This is not unexpected.”

Forgive me if I don’t take him entirely at his word. I guarantee his engineers are looking at that failure very closely to make absolutely sure it doesn’t indicate issues with the two engines on that first Vulcan rocket. It is very likely this is part of the reason that first launch is now delayed until the end of the year.

Blue Origin BE-4 rocket engine explodes during test

This failure has been kept very quiet, but on June 11, 2023 during a static fire engine test of a Blue Origin BE-4 rocket engine, it exploded 10 seconds into the test.

During a firing on June 30 at a West Texas facility of Jeff Bezos’ space company, a BE-4 engine detonated about 10 seconds into the test, according to several people familiar with the matter. Those people described having seen video of a dramatic explosion that destroyed the engine and heavily damaged the test stand infrastructure. The people spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic matters.

The engine that exploded was expected to finish testing in July. It was then scheduled to ship to Blue Origin’s customer United Launch Alliance for use on ULA’s second Vulcan rocket launch, those people said.

The story is based on anonymous sources, but if true it means another serious setback for both ULA’s Vulcan rocket and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. Vulcan has the BE-4 engines it needs to launch its first Vulcan, but it might feel forced to delay that launch until it receives the analysis of this failed test.

It also means that even after more than a decade of development, Blue Origin has still not worked out all the kinks in its BE-4 engine. This inability does not speak well for the company. Are they not testing enough? Are they not questioning their designs enough?

Blue Origin negotiating with India to use its rockets and capsule for Orbital Reef space station

According to the head of India’s space agency ISRO, he has been in discussions with Blue Origin about using different versions of that nation’s largest rocket (dubbed LVM-3 or GSLV-Mk3 depending on configuration) and its manned capsule (still under development) for eventually ferrying crew and cargo to Blue Origin’s proposed Orbital Reef space station.

Somanath said: “We are exploring … In fact, we’ve already discussed it with Blue Origin and they are very keen to consider this option of LVM-3 becoming a crew capsule mission to service the Orbital Reef. It is a possibility and we are engaging through IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre).”

On the challenge of integrating a docking system that is compatible, he said standard docking systems are in the public domain. “…Whoever can design a docking system that matches with the US design and standard, can be used. However, we will still need to have agreements with agencies to try it out given that there are multiple interfaces — electrical, mechanical and so on. It is not just one document, we will need to work with them to develop it. We will do that.

It appears Somanath has also had discussions with NASA about also providing the same service to ISS.

An Orbital Reef deal however suggests something very disturbing about Blue Origin. The plan had been to use Blue Origin’s New Glenn orbital rocket (also still under development but years behind schedule) to launch crew and cargo capsules to the station. That in fact is supposed to be Blue Origin’s main technical contribution to the station. Why would the company then look to India for such capability, unless it recognizes that there are more problems with New Glenn that it has not revealed?

It is also possible that Jeff Bezos is simply expressing his leftwing globalist agenda with these negotiations. Or it could mean some combination of both. This situation bears watching.

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