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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.