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.
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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.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I’ll believe it when I see it. B.O. has too many irons in the fire and has not produced much. I love the comments on Twitter/X- “Blue Nothing”, “Are you launching it on a Falcon 9?”, “Visions are cheap.”, and the rest are comments about them focusing on actually launching something.
Expecting Amazon to he re-branded as ‘Blue Sun’.
Blair Ivey
I have that t-shirt…
When I hear about lunar or cis-lunar activity, and they talk about data relay and computing, I get concerned.
There have been others that have talked about comm sats in orbit around the moon also.
There are a few different plans for a radio telescope on the far side. None close to starting, let alone launch, but the plans are good, and take advantage of the “quiet side” facing away from the noisy Earth, in a radio shadow.
When I hear about these plans, they increase the risk that such a shadow would be rendered useless.
Compared to Blue’s other announced projects, Blue Ring looks pretty modest. The illo on Blue’s website suggests the core of Blue Ring will be a multi-payload fixture similar to what SpaceX uses to stick all of those smallsats onto for Transporter missions. The Blue Ring core can be expected to be larger, in keeping with the larger payload fairing of New Glenn compared to the Falcons. Blue Ring also has a few extras such as its own electric propulsion and a pair of roll-out solar arrays for power generation. It may have tankage internal to the hexagonal core for hypergolic and/or noble gas propellants. that can be dispensed to customers as well as supplies for its own thrusters. It would appear to be the size and mass of what a single New Glenn launch can place in MEO.
Want to get a good paying job and accomplish absolutely nothing? BO is hiring!
There are reasons why but no one will talk about it because you will get fired.