New Glenn – Spaceflight Now

Amazon unveils plans for $120 million satellite processing facility for its internet constellation

July 21, 2023 Will Robinson-Smith

On Friday, online retail giant amazon will join with members of Space Florida to reveal its plans for a 100,000-square-foot satellite processing facility located at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility (LLF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Launch companies, range teams reassessing Cape Canaveral weather rules

March 3, 2021 Stephen Clark

Launch companies and U.S. Space Force range officials at Cape Canaveral are reassessing long-standing weather rules, looking at beefing up rocket defenses against lightning, and considering strategies to prepare for two different launch windows on a given day to guard against weather delays, something SpaceX may demonstrate with a Falcon 9 launch early Thursday.

ULA, SpaceX win landmark multibillion-dollar launch agreements with Pentagon

August 7, 2020 Stephen Clark

United Launch Alliance and SpaceX beat out Northrop Grumman and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin for billions of dollars in U.S. military rocket contracts, and will share the load in launching the Pentagon’s highest-priority national security space missions through 2027, officials announced Friday.

Companies release new details on human-rated lunar lander concepts

April 30, 2020 Stephen Clark

The next time astronauts land on the moon, they will ride to the lunar surface in a spacecraft that looks a lot different than the Apollo-era landing module last used in 1972. Lander concepts proposed by SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics — which won a combined $967 million in NASA funding Thursday — take wildly different approaches to carrying crews to the moon.

NASA to consider WFIRST launch options after mission passes key review

March 11, 2020 Stephen Clark

NASA expects to select a launch vehicle next year to carry the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope — a multibillion-dollar flagship astrophysics observatory targeted for cancellation by the Trump administration — into space in 2025 after the mission passed a key review last month, agency officials said.

Telesat taps Blue Origin to launch broadband satellite fleet

February 4, 2019 Stephen Clark

Telesat has selected Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket to “play a key role” in delivering potentially hundreds of broadband communications satellites into low Earth orbit under a multi-launch agreement announced last week, as Telesat officials prepare to select between two industrial teams to begin building spacecraft for the Internet network later this year.

ULA, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman share Air Force rocket funding

October 16, 2018 Stephen Clark

The U.S. Air Force has committed $109 million in funding to advance development of new rockets designed by United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman, leaving out SpaceX in a government investment round that will lead to the military’s selection of two long-term launch providers in late 2019 or 2020.

Blue Origin’s orbital rocket in the running to receive U.S. military investment

April 13, 2018 Stephen Clark

Blue Origin submitted a proposal late last year in what’s expected to be a four-way competition for U.S. Air Force funding to support development of new orbital-class rockets, a further step taken by the Jeff Bezos-owned company to break into the military launch market, industry officials said.

World’s largest methane-fueled rocket engine test-fired by Blue Origin

October 20, 2017 Stephen Clark

Blue Origin has conducted the first hotfire test of its BE-4 rocket engine in West Texas, a powerplant fueled by liquified natural gas and liquid oxygen that will power the company’s heavy-lift New Glenn rocket and perhaps United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan launcher, officials announced Thursday.

Blue Origin encounters setback in BE-4 engine testing

May 15, 2017 Stephen Clark

Blue Origin said Sunday that it lost a set of powerpack hardware for its BE-4 engine during a ground test mishap, dealing at least a minor setback to the development of a powerful U.S.-made propulsion system that United Launch Alliance says is the leading candidate to power the first stage of its next-generation Vulcan rocket.