GAME OVER! Blue Origin Is A Complete Failure?!

Credit:
Hazegrayart: https://bit.ly/3fg4dgU
ErcXSpace: https://bit.ly/2QSBZ2w
TijnM: https://bit.ly/3hMdqPL
Newsthink: https://bit.ly/3wIYAOn
Matthew Cable: https://bit.ly/3wA0d0H

First of all, Bezos personally is no stranger to success. He controls Amazon, the biggest online commerce store ever known to man, which he founded. Of course he is stepping down from the role of CEO later this year but he is doing so as the richest man on earth. Bezos also has a media empire with his ownership of The Washington Post.
Coming down to Blue Origin, a commercial space flight company the billionaire founded in 2000, success is not completely unheard of there either. The company is on record to have successfully landed its New Shepard rocket vertically, after it returned from space, that is, the rocket landed upright on its legs. The boosters were even reused.
Pretty cool achievement.
Sadly, that’s all Blue Origin can boast of, despite the backing of its billionaire founder. Perhaps that is about to change as Bezos has announced he would be focusing on the company after retiring from Amazon.
The Story of New Shepard
That singular triumph with the New Shepard quickly pales when compared with the competition. Its biggest rival, SpaceX, which was founded two years after Blue Origin, can boast of completing more than 100 missions that reached right into space and with a reusable rocket called the Falcon 9. It has even transported NASA’s astronauts into space. The New Shepard didn’t even get to space proper and had no crew.
Smaller companies are even overtaking Blue Origin. Rocket Lab, with not as much publicity, has nearly finished the design of its Electron rocket, using cheaper engines that are 3D printed. The startup has the edge of being able to move fast and has completed no less 18 missions, missions that delivered real satellites into space. Rocket Labs is even talking about sending a probe to Venus in a few years.
Blue Origin has been chasing after human spaceflight as a leisure activity. Of course that would be the preserve of the stinking rich, but that is if Bezos can actually pull it off.
That was the original purpose of New Shepard, to take adrenaline junkies with deep pockets to suborbital space in batches of six, where they will bask in the euphoria of weightlessness and take in the wonderful sight of the planet earth from that vantage point all for a grand total of…a few minutes.
New Shepard was supposed to have its first crewed flight in 2019 but that never happened. If Blue Origin hoped it would happen in 2020, the pandemic curtailed that as the company had to shelf most of its launch activities. Even 2021 is looking doubtful for the crewed flight planned for the rocket.
The Glenn Disappoints
Enters New Glenn, Amazon’s two-stage rocket. It stands tall at 98 meters and was named after the first American to circle the earth, astronaut John Glenn.
New Glenn would be capable of hauling 50 tons payloads to low Earth orbits, and it would serve to carry people to space as well. The boosters will come back to the earth, landing on a ship just like its rival’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets do.
The heavy-lift rocket was scheduled for maiden flight late 2021 but that has been confirmed not to be happening. Blue Origin has had to revise its schedule to late 2022 and that was because, as a company rep puts it:
“"This updated maiden flight target follows the recent Space Force decision to not select New Glenn for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 Launch Services Procurement (LSP)… New Glenn is proceeding to fulfill its current commercial contracts, pursue a large and growing commercial market, and enter into new civil space launch contracts. We hope to launch NSSL payloads in the future, and remain committed to serving the U.S. national defense mission”
What really transpired was that Blue Origin lost the Space Force contract to the partnership of SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. Northrop Grumman also lost out.
But if it is any consolation, NASA recently made Blue Origin’s New Glenn eligible to compete for contracts under the agency's Launch Services II program, which applies to launches through December 2027, but it would still have to get past SpaceX before landing any contract, something that is proving to be a herculean task.

The egg-on-the-face that was the Project Kuiper
Perhaps as a sign of no confidence in Blue Origin, Amazon is not using any rocket from its sister company to launch the first of its over 3000 satellite network for its Project Kuiper.
Project Kuiper is planned to provide affordable broadband services for customers and communities around the world, just like SpaceX is doing with its Starlink broadband project, with more than 1,300 satellites launched already.
Amazon would rather contract the first nine launches out to United Launch Alliance, which will be using its Atlas V rockets for the propulsion.

Видео GAME OVER! Blue Origin Is A Complete Failure?! канала Tech Space