7 comments

• Jhon B

  February 10, 2023 at 2:31 pm

  It’s nice to see NASA giving contracts to those underfunded starter rocket companies that have limited funds and are in danger of going broke. That being said, Why the heck are they giving it to Bozo’s? Oh, thats right, Amazon did not make a profit last year.
• pzatchok

  February 10, 2023 at 5:10 pm

  BO has become just like the aerospace contractors of old. Eventually they will be as big a Boeing and Lockheed.
  And not have to actually produce anything but jobs.
  Jobs and campaign funds.
• Richard M

  February 10, 2023 at 9:36 pm

  Oh, thats right, Amazon did not make a profit last year.

  Well, in fairness, Jeff Foust just noted on Twitter what the award amount for the ESCAPADE launch is: $20 million. I don’t think that’s going to do much for Amazon’s bottom line!

  For all my criticisms of Blue Origin, I really *do* think it would be beneficial to the U.S. to have New Glenn in operation, the sooner the better. I don’t mind this award, which is really just a small nominal fee to give NG a (non-important, non-urgent) payload on its first test flight. What does puzzle me is the assumption that Blue Origin would actually have New Glenn ready for a launch in 4Q of next year.
• Edward

  February 11, 2023 at 10:39 am

  Keep in mind that this is a contract for services, not a handout or subsidy. The press release uses the word “foster,” which gives a certain impression that these Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contracts are unearned. The government and many companies often will sign contracts with unlaunched launch vehicles, which shows confidence in those company and their rockets. It is why so many recent rockets have had their first launches with payloads rather than the traditional mass simulators. ESCAPADE isn’t even a payload for New Glenn’s first launch but for a launch late next year.

  https://tdglobal.ksc.nasa.gov/servlet/sm.web.Fetch/NASA_LSP_Fact_Sheet_for_Venture_Class__5.21.21.pdf?rhid=1003&did=50162&type=released

  The principal purpose of the VADR IDIQ contract is to provide FAA licensed launch services capable of delivering payloads to a variety of orbits, including escape trajectories.

  Since NASA is turning to commercial launch providers, this is merely another example of this trend. When NASA chooses a variety of launch providers, it helps to ensure that there will continue to be a competitive market, which has become a major goal for NASA’s Launch Services Program. A competitive market will ensure that additional efficiencies will be found or developed.

  Inefficiency was a problem for the first half century of spaceflight. Governments were the main launch providers as well as the main customers, and as monopolies — and monopsonies — they did did not have incentive to improve their launch services. However, they did incrementally improve their launch capacities. Launch services remained expensive and difficult to obtain, since there was such a high priority of government launches over private or commercial launches. The number of launch vehicles was limited and the launch cadences were low. SpaceX has changed this philosophy, and Rocket Lab is working to follow in these footsteps. Half a decade ago, we thought Blue Origin was nipping at SpaceX’s heels, too, but that turned out to be mired in difficulty. Blue Origin has yet to become efficient in its development process.

  Blue Origin receiving a contract to launch on an untested rocket is not as unusual as the comments here seem to imply. Like ULA’s Vulcan rocket (its first launch also has a customer), Blue Origin’s New Glenn is likely to work. The real question is whether these rockets can operate profitably in today’s competitive launch market. For those signing launch contracts, the question is whether the vehicle can get their payloads to orbit reliably. Once reliability has been proved, price and availability become important factors, and these depend upon efficiency.
• Richard M

  February 11, 2023 at 2:05 pm

  ESCAPADE isn’t even a payload for New Glenn’s first launch but for a launch late next year.

  Are we sure about that?
• Jeff Wright

  February 11, 2023 at 10:20 pm

  Say what you will of SLS.. we got a long core test where the nozzles gimbaled like mad—thumped a multi ton object BEO after taking a hurricane to the face.

  What has Bezos done?
• Edward

  February 12, 2023 at 4:02 pm

  Jeff Wright asked: “What has Bezos done?”

  His is the third private company to take people into space, a task that twenty years ago only three nations had ever managed to do. As Virgin Galactic has shown, this is no small feat. It is difficult, it is costly, and it is still dangerous.

  SLS may do better than any of Blue Origin’s vehicles, but SLS has the resources of a powerful nation with three quarters of a century of rocket experience behind it. From one perspective SLS may seem impressive, with its madly gimbaling nozzles, but from most other perspectives Bezos is more impressive.

  I often complain that Blue Origin does not yet do rapid development, but neither do the various national space programs. NASA has worked on a return to the Moon for two decades, has more resources than it had when it started the first trip to the Moon, yet it is taking more than three times longer to get man back to the Moon. From that perspective, even Richard Branson is impressive.