The private aerospace company Blue Origin has a number of development, manufacturing, and test facilities in four US states: Washington, Texas, Florida, and Alabama.
Blue Origin began in 2000 with only a development and office facility near Seattle, Washington. By 2003 Blue Origin was buying land in west Texas for a rocket engine test facility and, subsequently, for a suborbital rocket launch site. [1] Blue Origin is currently developing a new orbital launch facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and a nearby rocket assembly facility in Brevard County, Florida. [2]
The company is headquartered on 11 hectares (26 acres) of industrial land in Kent, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, where its research and development is located. The facility was 24,000 m2 (260,000 sq ft) in size in early 2015, [3] growing to 28,000 m2 (300,000 sq ft) by March 2016 with Blue Origin leasing additional space in adjacent office buildings. As of March 2016 [update] , the Kent facility housed engineering, manufacturing and business operations and the majority of the 600-person [4] Blue Origin workforce, which grew from about 350 persons at Kent in May 2015. [3] They added an additional 42,630 m2 (458,900 sq ft) of office, manufacturing and warehouse space to their headquarters facilities in 2016 and 2017. [5] [6] In late 2017, Blue Origin purchased an additional 13 hectares (31 acres)—adding to their existing 11 hectares (26 acres)—of land on which they plan to build another 32,000 m2 (340,000 sq ft) of facility in Washington state. [7]
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In September 2015, Blue Origin leased Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) in Cape Canaveral, Florida to build a launch pad for their orbital launch vehicle New Glenn. As of March 2016 [update] , the first Blue Origin launch from LC36 is planned for 2020. An August 2015 estimate predicted that initial launch happening earlier than 2020. [8] Ground-breaking for the facility to begin construction occurred in June 2016. [9] By March 2018, Blue's construction at LC-36 was lagging, but the company stated they did not think it would delay achieving the anticipated 2020 initial launch of New Glenn. [10] However as of 2022 Blue Origin does not expect to launch New Glenn until 2023 at the earliest. [11] The factory was complete by 2020 and was being used for the construction of New Glenn prototypes by 2021. [12]
The Blue Origin orbital launch site will be situated on a total of 306 acres of leased land assembled from former Launch Complexes 11, 36A, and 36B. The land parcel will be used to build a rocket engine test stand for the BE-4 engine, a launch mount—called the Orbital Launch Site by Blue—and a reusable booster refurbishment facility for the New Glenn launch vehicle, which is expected to land on a seaborne platform and returned to Port Canaveral for refurbishment.
In addition, the manufacturing of "large elements, such as first stages, second stages, payload fairings, etc." will occur at the Blue Origin launch vehicle factory on Space Commerce Parkway in nearby Exploration Park, near the entrance to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Merritt Island. [13]
In October 2018, Stena Freighter, 182 meter cargo-ship purchased from ferry operator Stena Line, arrived in Florida from Spain. CEO Bob Smith, confirmed Stena Freighter would be used as the landing platform vessel for first-stage boosters. [14] The landing ship will be hydrodynamically stabilized. [15]
Blue Origin has a suborbital launch facility known as Launch Site One. It is located in the West Texas region, 25 miles north of the town of Van Horn at 31.451646°+N, -104.762835°+W. Current launch license and experimental permits from the US government Federal Aviation Administration authorize flights of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital system. [16] In addition to the suborbital launch pads, the West Texas site includes a number of rocket engine test stands. Engine test cells to support both hydrolox, methalox and storable propellant engines are present.
Included are three test cells just for testing the methalox BE-4 engine alone: two full test cells that can support full-thrust and full-duration burns, as well as one that supports short-duration, high-pressure preburner tests, to "refine the ignition sequence and understand the start transients." [17]
In June 2016, Blue Origin president Rob Meyerson announced that they would build a new facility in Huntsville, Alabama to manufacture the large BE-4 cryogenic rocket engine. [18]
Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida.
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 founder and executive chairman of Amazon, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles. Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company's name refers to the blue planet, Earth, as the point of origin.
Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, were first designed for the Saturn V launch vehicle. Typically used to launch NASA's crewed spaceflight missions since the late 1960s, the pad was leased by SpaceX and has been modified to support their launch vehicles.
Launch Complex 39 (LC-39) is a rocket launch site at the John F. Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. The site and its collection of facilities were originally built as the Apollo program's "Moonport" and later modified for the Space Shuttle program.
Launch Complex 36 (LC-36)—formerly known as Space Launch Complex 36 (SLC-36) from 1997 to 2010—is a launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Brevard County, Florida. It was used for Atlas launches by NASA and the U.S. Air Force from 1962 until 2005.
New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin for space tourism. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and vertical landing, and can carry a crew.
Corn Ranch, or Launch Site One, is a spaceport in the West Texas town of Van Horn, Texas. The 670-square-kilometer (165,000-acre) land parcel was purchased by Internet billionaire Jeff Bezos. Current launch license and experimental permits from the US government Federal Aviation Administration authorize flights of New Shepard rockets. The first flight test took place on November 13, 2006 with the goal of providing commercial tourist flights. Blue Origin’s first human spaceflight launched at Corn Ranch on July 20, 2021. The flight, dubbed NS-16, carried founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, test pilot and Mercury 13 member Wally Funk, and Dutchman Oliver Daemen on a suborbital flight aboard New Shepard 4.
Vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) is a form of takeoff and landing for rockets. Multiple VTVL craft have flown. The most widely known and commercially successful VTVL rocket is SpaceX's Falcon 9 first stage.
Launch Complex 11 (LC-11) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, is a launch complex used by Atlas missiles between 1958 and 1964. It is the southernmost of the launch pads known as Missile Row. When it was built, it, along with complexes 12, 13 and 14, featured a more robust design than many contemporary pads, due to the greater power of the Atlas compared to other rockets of the time. It was larger, and featured a concrete launch pedestal that was 6 metres (20 ft) tall and a reinforced blockhouse. The rockets were delivered to the launch pad by a ramp on the southwest side of the launch pedestal.
Launch Complex 18 (LC-18) is a launch complex at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida that was active during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was used by Viking, Vanguard, Thor and Scout rockets. The complex consists of two launch pads, LC-18A, which was originally built by the US Navy for the Vanguard rocket, and LC-18B, which was originally by the US Air Force used for tests of the PGM-17 Thor missile.
Astra is an American launch vehicle company based in Alameda, California. Astra was incorporated in October 2016 by Chris Kemp and Adam London. Formerly known in media as "Stealth Space Company", the company formally came out as Astra Space, Inc. in a Bloomberg L.P. article by Ashlee Vance. Investors include BlackRock, Advance, ACME, Airbus Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, and more.
The BE-3 is a LH2/LOX rocket engine developed by Blue Origin.
As of 2020, SpaceX operates four launch facilities: Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), Vandenberg Space Force Base Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E), Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), and Brownsville South Texas Launch Site. Space Launch Complex 40 was damaged in the AMOS-6 accident in September 2016 and repair work was completed by December 2017. SpaceX believes that they can optimize their launch operations, and reduce launch costs, by dividing their launch missions amongst these four launch facilities: LC-39A for NASA launches, SLC-40 for United States Space Force national security launches, SLC-4E for polar launches, and South Texas Launch Site for commercial launches.
The Blue Engine 4 or BE-4 is an oxygen-rich liquefied-methane-fueled staged-combustion rocket engine under development by Blue Origin. The BE-4 is being developed with private and public funding. The engine has been designed to produce 2.4 meganewtons (550,000 lbf) of thrust at sea level.
New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. Named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, design work on the vehicle began in 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. New Glenn is a two-stage rocket with a diameter of 7 m (23 ft). Its first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 engines that are also being designed and manufactured by Blue Origin.
The billionaire space race is the rivalry among entrepreneurs who have entered the space industry from other industries - particularly computing. This private industry space race of the 21st century involves sending rockets to the ionosphere, orbital launch rockets, and suborbital tourist spaceflights.
Jacklyn — formerly known as the Blue Origin landing platform ship or, officially in 2018–2021, as LPV; and before that, Stena Freighter, Stena Seafreighter, RFA Sea Chieftain, and Stena Hispanica — was being refit in 2018–2022 from a former roll-on/roll-off cargo ship for possible use as a landing platform ship. The ship was then owned by rocket and space technology company Blue Origin, and was purchased in 2018 for use as a floating landing platform for Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle booster stage. During 2018 to 2022, the ship had been in port undergoing refit to prepare for a novel role of landing launch vehicle first stages. Ultimately, Blue Origin abandoned their plans to use the ship as a landing platform, and in August 2022, the ship was towed to the Port of Brownsville for scrapping.
A floating launch vehicle operations platform is a marine vessel used for launch or landing operations of an orbital launch vehicle by a launch service provider: putting satellites into orbit around Earth or another celestial body, or recovering first-stage boosters from orbital-class flights by making a propulsive landing on the platform.
construction at LC-36. The Air Force ... limits work that can be done on "critical days" around launches, to avoid construction work that could cause mishaps—broken pipelines or severed cables—that would delay those launches. "Part of building is that you've actually got to be able to put a shovel into the ground", Henderson said. "On a critical day at Cape Canaveral you cannot break the surface of the ground". The number of critical days has been growing, in part because of increased launch activity. In 10 of the previous 12 months, he said, more than half of the work days were deemed critical days. "It's nearly impossible to build a project under those kinds of constraints".