Blue Origin is an American spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos in September 2000 and headquartered in Kent, Washington. Blue Origin's reusable New Shepard rocket has carried 92 people to suborbital space,[1] its New Glenn heavy-lift rocket has flown three times,[8] and its Blue Moon MK2 lander is contracted to land NASA astronauts on the Moon for the Artemis program under a 3.4 billion dollar award.[23]

For its first two decades the company moved deliberately, in keeping with its motto "Gradatim Ferociter" (step by step, ferociously), flying New Shepard while developing engines, an orbital launcher, and lunar landers. Bezos, who also founded Amazon, has funded much of the work personally through sales of Amazon stock. Since January 2026 the company's center of gravity has shifted decisively to the Moon and to New Glenn.

Status as of August 2026

Blue Origin enters mid-August 2026 with both of its rockets on the ground. New Shepard last flew on January 22, 2026, its 38th mission, and on January 30 the company paused the suborbital program for no less than two years to move its resources onto the Blue Moon lunar landers.[1][12] New Glenn has been grounded since May 28, 2026, when a first stage exploded during a static-fire test and damaged Launch Complex 36, the company's only operational orbital launch pad.[2] Blue Origin traced the blast to the main oxygen valve on one of the booster's BE-4 engines, expects modified valve hardware by the end of August, and still intends to return the rocket to flight before the end of 2026.[8] The pad damage pushed the first Blue Moon MK1 lander, Endurance, to a launch in the first quarter of 2027,[8][18] and the crewed MK2 remains assigned to dock with an Orion crew on Artemis III in 2027 ahead of a crewed landing on Artemis IV in 2028.[7]

New Shepard

New Shepard, named for Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, is Blue Origin's fully reusable single-stage suborbital rocket topped by a six-seat capsule. It first reached space on November 23, 2015, when the booster flew to 100.5 kilometers and then landed vertically back at the West Texas launch site, the first booster to make a powered vertical landing after flying to space, several weeks before SpaceX first landed a Falcon 9.[9] On July 20, 2021, it carried its first crew: Bezos, his brother Mark, aviator Wally Funk, and student Oliver Daemen. Later passengers included William Shatner and, on the NS-31 flight in April 2025, an all-female crew, the first since Valentina Tereshkova's solo flight in 1963. The program's one mission failure came on the uncrewed NS-23 flight in September 2022, when a structural failure of the engine nozzle set off the capsule's escape system; the capsule and its research payloads landed safely under parachutes,[10] and flights resumed in December 2023.[11] The system flew 38 missions through January 22, 2026, flying 92 people above the Karman line on 98 seats, since several passengers have flown more than once and making Blue Origin one of the two main operators in commercial space tourism.[1]

On January 30, 2026, the company announced it would pause New Shepard flights for no less than two years, redirecting the program's resources toward its lunar landers.[1][12]

New Glenn

New Glenn is Blue Origin's partially reusable heavy-lift rocket, about 98 meters tall. Its first stage, powered by seven methane-fueled BE-4 engines and designed for 25 flights, lands on the sea-going platform Jacklyn; the expendable second stage uses two hydrogen-fueled BE-3U engines. The rocket flies from Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at Cape Canaveral.

FlightDatePayloadMission outcomeBooster result
NG-1January 16, 2025Blue Ring PathfinderSuccessLost during descent
NG-2November 13, 2025NASA ESCAPADE Mars probesSuccessLanded at sea (first success)
NG-3April 19, 2026AST SpaceMobile BlueBird 7Failure (payload in unusable orbit)Landed at sea (first reuse)

NG-1 reached orbit on the first attempt. NG-2 launched the twin ESCAPADE Mars spacecraft, built by Rocket Lab, and its booster, nicknamed "Never Tell Me The Odds," became the first New Glenn stage recovered intact. That same booster flew again on NG-3 on April 19, 2026, and landed a second time, the first reuse of a New Glenn first stage. The primary mission failed, however: a cryogenic leak froze a hydraulic line, one of the two BE-3U engines could not reach full thrust during the second upper-stage burn, and the BlueBird 7 direct-to-cell communications satellite, built for AST SpaceMobile, was left in an orbit too low to recover from.[3][13] The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded New Glenn during the investigation and cleared it to fly again on May 22, 2026, after accepting the company's nine corrective actions.[13]

In November 2025 Blue Origin announced upgrades that raise the rocket's combined first-stage thrust from 3.9 million to 4.5 million pounds-force and its second-stage thrust from 320,000 to 400,000 pounds-force, along with a larger New Glenn 9x4 variant carrying nine BE-4 engines and an 8.7 meter fairing, designed to place more than 70 metric tons into low Earth orbit.[14]

The May 2026 New Glenn explosion

On the evening of May 28, 2026, six days after the FAA cleared New Glenn to fly again, the first stage assigned to the rocket's fourth flight exploded moments after its seven BE-4 engines ignited for a static-fire test at LC-36. The fireball destroyed the booster, toppled at least one lightning tower, and wrecked the transporter-erector, though propellant farms and other pad infrastructure survived in better condition than first feared. No one was injured. The lost mission was to carry 48 satellites for Amazon's Leo broadband constellation, the first of 24 New Glenn launches Amazon has booked; the satellites had not yet been moved to the pad.[2][15][16]

Crews cleared the wreckage within nine days, and Blue Origin said it would accelerate a planned redesign of pad operations, replacing the destroyed transporter-erector with a vertical integration approach in which the assembled rocket is hoisted upright by crane at the pad; the new integration building's doors, each 88 feet tall, were installed at the end of July 2026.[8][17] The company stated a goal of returning New Glenn to flight before the end of 2026; outside analysts have cautioned that pad repairs could take considerably longer.[4][17] The accident directly affects NASA's lunar schedule, because New Glenn is the launch vehicle for the Blue Moon landers.[4]

In early August 2026, chief executive Dave Limp said the explosion originated at the main oxygen valve on one of the booster's BE-4 engines, a finding confirmed by inspections of recovered hardware. The company is making small modifications to the valve that can be retrofitted to existing engines, with the updated hardware expected by the end of August.[8]

Blue Moon landers and Artemis

Blue Origin is building two lunar landers under the Blue Moon name. The uncrewed MK1, about eight meters tall with a cargo capacity of roughly three tonnes, is powered by the hydrogen-fueled BE-7 engine. The first flight article, named Endurance, completed thermal vacuum testing in the historic Chamber A at NASA's Johnson Space Center in May 2026 and is slated to attempt a landing near Shackleton crater at the lunar south pole, carrying NASA stereo cameras and a laser retroreflector under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.[5] The mission was to fly on New Glenn as soon as the late summer of 2026, but the pad damage has pushed the launch to the first quarter of 2027.[8][18] Four MK1 landers are in production: in September 2025 NASA selected the second to deliver the revived VIPER rover to the south pole in late 2027, a task order worth up to 190 million dollars,[6] and two more are assigned to carry lunar terrain vehicle rovers from Astrolab and Lunar Outpost in 2028.[18]

The larger MK2 is Blue Origin's crewed lander, contracted in 2023 under a 3.4 billion dollar NASA award to land astronauts on the Moon for Artemis V.[23] Under NASA's June 2026 replanning, lander test vehicles from Blue Origin and SpaceX are to rendezvous and dock with an Orion crew in Earth orbit on Artemis III in 2027, ahead of a first crewed south pole landing planned for Artemis IV in 2028.[4][7] Three MK2 vehicles are in work: the Artemis III test article and two crew-capable landers the company calls MK2 Alpha.[18]

Engines and other ventures

Blue Origin is a major engine supplier: its BE-4 powers United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur as well as New Glenn.

EnginePropellantsThrustPowers
BE-3PMLiquid hydrogen / liquid oxygen110,000 pounds-force[20]New Shepard booster
BE-3ULiquid hydrogen / liquid oxygen320,000 pounds-force from two engines, upgrade to 400,000 announced[14]New Glenn second stage
BE-4Liquefied natural gas / liquid oxygen3.9 million pounds-force from seven engines, upgrade to 4.5 million announced[14]New Glenn first stage, Vulcan Centaur first stage
BE-7Liquid hydrogen / liquid oxygen10,000 pounds-force, throttling down to 2,000 for landing[19]Blue Moon landers

The Blue Ring program offers a maneuverable spacecraft platform for the US Space Force and commercial customers, and the company leads the Orbital Reef commercial space station concept with Sierra Space as a possible successor to the International Space Station. NASA backed the station's design work with a 130 million dollar Space Act Agreement in December 2021 under its commercial low Earth orbit destinations program, with Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering, and Arizona State University among the teammates.[21]

The workforce grew to nearly 14,000 people before Blue Origin laid off about 10 percent of its staff in February 2025, a cut Limp said was aimed at reducing bureaucracy and ramping up New Glenn production; the company still employs more than 10,000 people across Washington, Texas, Florida, and Alabama.[22]

References

  1. Blue Origin to Pause New Shepard Flights for No Less Than Two Years - Blue Origin.
  2. New Glenn rocket explodes on Cape Canaveral pad - SpaceNews.
  3. Blue Origin reuses huge New Glenn rocket for 1st time, lands booster at sea - but deploys satellite into wrong orbit - Space.com.
  4. 'A pretty significant setback': How Blue Origin's rocket explosion affects NASA's moon plans - Space.com.
  5. Blue Origin Moon Lander Completes Testing at NASA Vacuum Chamber - NASA.
  6. NASA Selects Blue Origin to Deliver VIPER Rover to Moon's South Pole - NASA.
  7. NASA Marches Toward Artemis III Mission in 2027, Names Crew Members - NASA.
  8. Blue Origin identifies engine issue behind New Glenn explosion - Spaceflight Now.
  9. Blue Origin Makes Historic Reusable Rocket Landing in Epic Test Flight - Space.com.
  10. Blue Origin blames New Shepard mishap on engine nozzle failure - SpaceNews.
  11. Blue Origin launches New Shepard rocket on return to flight mission - Spaceflight Now.
  12. Blue Origin halts New Shepard flights - SpaceNews.
  13. Blue Origin completes investigation into New Glenn launch failure - SpaceNews.
  14. Blue Origin announces New Glenn upgrade plans - SpaceNews.
  15. Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explodes during prelaunch testing at Cape Canaveral - Spaceflight Now.
  16. Blue Origin readies New Glenn rocket to launch 48 Amazon Leo satellites after FAA clearance - GeekWire.
  17. Blue Origin outlines return to flight logistics for its New Glenn rockets - Spaceflight Now.
  18. Blue Origin continues work on lunar landers during recovery from New Glenn explosion - SpaceNews.
  19. Blue Origin continues work on BE-7 lunar lander engine - SpaceNews.
  20. NASA Commercial Crew Partner Blue Origin Test-Fires New Rocket Engine - NASA.
  21. NASA Selects Companies to Develop Commercial Destinations in Space - NASA.
  22. Blue Origin to lay off 10% of its workforce - SpaceNews.
  23. NASA Selects Blue Origin as Second Artemis Lunar Lander Provider - NASA.