Blue Origin
Encyclopedia
Blue Origin is a privately funded aerospace
company set up by Amazon.com
founder Jeff Bezos
. The company was awarded $3.7 million in funding in 2009 by NASA via a Space Act Agreement
under the Commercial Crew Development
(CCDev) program for development of concepts and technologies to support future human spaceflight operations. The company's innovative "pusher" Launch Abort System
(LAS) was one of the technologies that was of particular interest to NASA. To date abort systems have been of the tractor variety, which pulls a crew vehicle to safety in case of an emergency.
Initially focused on sub-orbital spaceflight
, the company has built and flown a testbed of its New Shepard
spacecraft design at their Culberson County, Texas
facility. According to company statements, it initially planned on placing the New Shepard in commercial suborbital tourist service in 2010 with flights about once a week. However, in 2008 the publicized timetable stated that Blue Origin will fly unmanned in 2011, and manned in 2012.
In January 2005, Bezos told the editor of the Van Horn Advocate that Blue Origin is developing a sub-orbital space vehicle that will take off and land vertically
and carry three or more astronauts to the edge of space
. The spacecraft is based on technology like that used for the McDonnell Douglas DC-X
and derivative DC-XA. Bezos told Reuters
in November 2004 that his company hopes to progress to orbital spaceflight
. , the company's website announced that it hopes to establish an "enduring human presence in space
", but the 2007 version talks instead of aiming to "patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system".
Science fiction author Neal Stephenson
worked part-time at Blue Origin until November 15, 2006.
, a suburb of Seattle
, where its research and development is located. A basic launch pad is located in Texas at 31.4517°N 104.7628°W, about 3.9 miles (6.3 km) north of a check-out building.
. The New Shepard will be controlled entirely by on-board computers, without ground control
. It will be powered by high-test peroxide (HTP) and RP-1
kerosene.
A number of test vehicles will also be built. The first example, named the Goddard
(also known as PM1), first flew on November 13, 2006. The flight was successful. However, a second test flight filed for December 2 never launched. According to Federal Aviation Administration
records, two further flights were performed by Goddard.
In an interview with television show host Charlie Rose
on November 19, 2007, Bezos reported that the construction of a second test vehicle was in progress and that a third development vehicle would be built after that, before any commercial flights would begin.
A Federal Aviation Administration NOTAM
indicated that a flight test was scheduled for August 24, 2011. The August 24, 2011 test flight in west Texas failed when ground personnel lost contact and control of the vehicle. The company recovered remnants of the spacecraft after a ground search. Blue Origin released the results of the cause of the test vehicle failure on September 2. As the vehicle reached a speed of Mach
1.2 and 45,000 feet (14,000 m) altitude, a "flight instability drove an angle of attack
that triggered [the] range safety system
to terminate thrust on the vehicle."
In April 2011, Blue Origin received a commitment from NASA for US$
22 million of funding under the CCDev phase 2 program. The NASA funds are intended to accelerate development of a manned orbital spacecraft (Space Vehicle) and launch escape technology
which can be used for New Shepard and the Space Vehicle, with substantial additional development funding expected to be provided by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos
.The funds will also be used to accelerate the development and testing of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engine for the Reusable Booster System which will be used in a later phase to launch the Space Vehicle to orbit (the first flights of the Space Vehicle will use the Atlas V
rocket).
Aerospace
Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through air and space...
company set up by Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
founder Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos is the founder, president, chief executive officer , and chairman of the board of Amazon.com.-Early life and background:...
. The company was awarded $3.7 million in funding in 2009 by NASA via a Space Act Agreement
Space Act Agreement
Space Act Agreement is a type of legal agreement specified in the National Aeronautics and Space Act that established NASA. Agreements of this type have been reached under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services and Commercial Crew Development programs are examples of Space Act agreements...
under the Commercial Crew Development
Commercial Crew Development
Commercial Crew Development is a multiphase space technology development program, funded by the U.S. government, and administered by NASA. The program is intended to stimulate development of privately operated crew vehicles to low Earth orbit. It is run by the Commercial Crew and Cargo Program...
(CCDev) program for development of concepts and technologies to support future human spaceflight operations. The company's innovative "pusher" Launch Abort System
Launch escape system
A Launch Escape System is a top-mounted rocket connected to the crew module of a crewed spacecraft and used to quickly separate the crew module from the rest of the rocket in case of emergency. Since the escape rockets are above the crew module, an LES typically uses separate nozzles which are...
(LAS) was one of the technologies that was of particular interest to NASA. To date abort systems have been of the tractor variety, which pulls a crew vehicle to safety in case of an emergency.
Initially focused on sub-orbital spaceflight
Sub-orbital spaceflight
A sub-orbital space flight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it does not complete one orbital revolution....
, the company has built and flown a testbed of its New Shepard
Blue Origin New Shepard
The Blue Origin New Shepard reusable launch vehicle is a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing , suborbital manned rocket that is being developed by Blue Origin, a company owned by Amazon.com founder and businessman Jeff Bezos, as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism.The New Shepard makes...
spacecraft design at their Culberson County, Texas
Culberson County, Texas
Culberson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is one of the nine counties that comprise the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas. In 2000, its population was 2,975. Culberson was founded in 1911. It is named for David B. Culberson, a lawyer and Confederate soldier in the American...
facility. According to company statements, it initially planned on placing the New Shepard in commercial suborbital tourist service in 2010 with flights about once a week. However, in 2008 the publicized timetable stated that Blue Origin will fly unmanned in 2011, and manned in 2012.
History
Since its founding, the company — the motto of which is Latin for "Step-by-Step, Ferociously" — has been notoriously tight-lipped about its plans. Although the company was formally incorporated in 2000, its existence only became public in 2003, when Bezos started buying land in Texas and interested parties followed up on the purchases. This was a topic of some interest in local politics, and his rapid aggregation of the lots under a variety of whimsically named shell companies was called a "land grab".In January 2005, Bezos told the editor of the Van Horn Advocate that Blue Origin is developing a sub-orbital space vehicle that will take off and land vertically
VTOL
A vertical take-off and landing aircraft is one that can hover, take off and land vertically. This classification includes fixed-wing aircraft as well as helicopters and other aircraft with powered rotors, such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and tiltrotors...
and carry three or more astronauts to the edge of space
Karman line
The Kármán line lies at an altitude of above the Earth's sea level, and is commonly used to define the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space...
. The spacecraft is based on technology like that used for the McDonnell Douglas DC-X
McDonnell Douglas DC-X
The DC-X, short for Delta Clipper or Delta Clipper Experimental, was an unmanned prototype of a reusable single stage to orbit launch vehicle built by McDonnell Douglas in conjunction with the United States Department of Defense's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization from 1991 to 1993...
and derivative DC-XA. Bezos told Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
in November 2004 that his company hopes to progress to orbital spaceflight
Orbital spaceflight
An orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, it must be on a free trajectory which has an altitude at perigee above...
. , the company's website announced that it hopes to establish an "enduring human presence in space
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
", but the 2007 version talks instead of aiming to "patiently and step-by-step, to lower the cost of spaceflight so that many people can afford to go and so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system".
Science fiction author Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson
Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...
worked part-time at Blue Origin until November 15, 2006.
Facilities
The company is headquartered in a warehouse situated on 25 acres (10 ha) of industrial land in Kent, WashingtonKent, Washington
Kent is a city located in King County, Washington, United States, and is the third largest city in King County and the sixth largest in the state. An outlying suburb of Seattle, Kent is also the corporate home for companies such as REI and Oberto Sausage...
, a suburb of Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, where its research and development is located. A basic launch pad is located in Texas at 31.4517°N 104.7628°W, about 3.9 miles (6.3 km) north of a check-out building.
New Shepard
The company plans to build a suborbital vehicle called New ShepardBlue Origin New Shepard
The Blue Origin New Shepard reusable launch vehicle is a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing , suborbital manned rocket that is being developed by Blue Origin, a company owned by Amazon.com founder and businessman Jeff Bezos, as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism.The New Shepard makes...
. The New Shepard will be controlled entirely by on-board computers, without ground control
Mission Control Center
A mission control center is an entity that manages aerospace vehicle flights, usually from the point of lift-off until the landing or the end of the mission. A staff of flight controllers and other support personnel monitor all aspects of the mission using telemetry, and send commands to the...
. It will be powered by high-test peroxide (HTP) and RP-1
RP-1
RP-1 is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as a rocket fuel. Although having a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen , RP-1 is cheaper, can be stored at room temperature, is far less of an explosive hazard and is far denser...
kerosene.
A number of test vehicles will also be built. The first example, named the Goddard
Blue Origin Goddard
Blue Origin Goddard is the name of the first development vehicle in the Blue Origin New Shepard program, which flew for the first time on November 13, 2006. Named after rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard, the vehicle is a subscale demonstrator and flew at a 285 ft altitude during its initial flight...
(also known as PM1), first flew on November 13, 2006. The flight was successful. However, a second test flight filed for December 2 never launched. According to Federal Aviation Administration
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...
records, two further flights were performed by Goddard.
In an interview with television show host Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
on November 19, 2007, Bezos reported that the construction of a second test vehicle was in progress and that a third development vehicle would be built after that, before any commercial flights would begin.
A Federal Aviation Administration NOTAM
NOTAM
NOTAM or NoTAM is the quasi-acronym for a "Notice To Airmen". NOTAMs are created and transmitted by government agencies and airport operators under guidelines specified by Annex 15: Aeronautical Information Services of the Convention on International Civil Aviation...
indicated that a flight test was scheduled for August 24, 2011. The August 24, 2011 test flight in west Texas failed when ground personnel lost contact and control of the vehicle. The company recovered remnants of the spacecraft after a ground search. Blue Origin released the results of the cause of the test vehicle failure on September 2. As the vehicle reached a speed of Mach
Mach number
Mach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any other fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance for its particular physical conditions, including those of temperature and pressure...
1.2 and 45,000 feet (14,000 m) altitude, a "flight instability drove an angle of attack
Angle of attack
Angle of attack is a term used in fluid dynamics to describe the angle between a reference line on a lifting body and the vector representing the relative motion between the lifting body and the fluid through which it is moving...
that triggered [the] range safety system
Range Safety and Telemetry System
Range Safety and Telemetry System is a GPS based, S-band telemetry receiving and UHF command destruct system, with two 5.4-meter telemetry and command destruct auto-tracking antennas. The system built by Honeywell International...
to terminate thrust on the vehicle."
Orbital spacecraft
Blue Origin has also started work on developing systems for an orbital spacecraft. In 2010, under the CCDev Program, NASA awarded money to Blue Origin, to develop a pusher abort escape system, as well as a composite pressure vessel. This was later revealed to be a part of a larger system, designed for a biconic capsule, that would be launched atop an Atlas V 402. On November 8, 2010, it was announced that Blue Origin had completed all milestones under its CCDev Space Act Agreement.In April 2011, Blue Origin received a commitment from NASA for US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
22 million of funding under the CCDev phase 2 program. The NASA funds are intended to accelerate development of a manned orbital spacecraft (Space Vehicle) and launch escape technology
Launch escape system
A Launch Escape System is a top-mounted rocket connected to the crew module of a crewed spacecraft and used to quickly separate the crew module from the rest of the rocket in case of emergency. Since the escape rockets are above the crew module, an LES typically uses separate nozzles which are...
which can be used for New Shepard and the Space Vehicle, with substantial additional development funding expected to be provided by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos is the founder, president, chief executive officer , and chairman of the board of Amazon.com.-Early life and background:...
.The funds will also be used to accelerate the development and testing of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engine for the Reusable Booster System which will be used in a later phase to launch the Space Vehicle to orbit (the first flights of the Space Vehicle will use the Atlas V
Atlas V
Atlas V is an active expendable launch system in the Atlas rocket family. Atlas V was formerly operated by Lockheed Martin, and is now operated by the Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance...
rocket).
Test flights
- First test flight: 13 November 2006, 06:30 (GoddardBlue Origin GoddardBlue Origin Goddard is the name of the first development vehicle in the Blue Origin New Shepard program, which flew for the first time on November 13, 2006. Named after rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard, the vehicle is a subscale demonstrator and flew at a 285 ft altitude during its initial flight...
) - Second test flight: 22 March 2007 (Goddard)
- Third test flight: 19 April 2007 (Goddard)
- Fourth test flight: 06 May 2011 (New ShepardBlue Origin New ShepardThe Blue Origin New Shepard reusable launch vehicle is a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing , suborbital manned rocket that is being developed by Blue Origin, a company owned by Amazon.com founder and businessman Jeff Bezos, as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism.The New Shepard makes...
propulsion module (PM2)) - Fifth test flight: 24 August 2011 (PM2, failure, loss of vehicle)
External links
- Official site
- Amazon Enters the Space Race Wired Magazine (July 2003)
- Amazon CEO gives us peek into space plans, a January 2005 article from The Seattle TimesThe Seattle TimesThe Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...
- Amazon.com founder's space venture has West Texas county abuzz (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 12, 2005)
- Blue Origin West Texas Commercial Launch Site Environmental Assessment
- Latest Blue Origin News on the Space Fellowship