Blue Origin is an American spaceflight company founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in September 2000 and headquartered in Kent, Washington. For its first two decades it moved deliberately, in keeping with its motto "Gradatim Ferociter" (step by step, ferociously), flying the reusable New Shepard suborbital rocket while developing engines, an orbital launcher, and lunar landers. Bezos has funded much of the work personally through sales of Amazon stock.
The company's center of gravity has shifted decisively to the Moon and to its New Glenn heavy-lift rocket. In January 2026 Blue Origin paused New Shepard's space tourism flights for at least two years to concentrate resources on its Blue Moon landers and the Artemis program.[1] Three months after New Glenn's first successful booster reuse, however, a first stage exploded during a static-fire test on May 28, 2026, destroying the vehicle and damaging the company's only operational orbital launch pad.[2]
New Shepard
New Shepard, named for Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, is a fully reusable single-stage suborbital rocket topped by a six-seat capsule. It first reached space in 2015, and 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 system flew 38 missions through January 22, 2026, carrying 98 passengers (92 different individuals) above the Karman line 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 staff and budget toward its lunar landers.[1]
New Glenn
New Glenn is a 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.
| Flight | Date | Payload | Booster result |
|---|---|---|---|
| NG-1 | January 16, 2025 | Blue Ring Pathfinder | Lost during descent |
| NG-2 | November 13, 2025 | NASA ESCAPADE Mars probes | Landed at sea (first success) |
| NG-3 | April 19, 2026 | BlueBird 7 satellite | 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 mission was not a full success: one BE-3U underperformed during the second upper-stage burn, leaving the BlueBird 7 direct-to-cell communications satellite in a lower orbit than planned.[3]
The May 2026 explosion
On the evening of May 28, 2026, the first stage assigned to New Glenn'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 49 satellites for Amazon's Leo broadband constellation.[2][4]
Blue Origin said it would accelerate a planned redesign of pad operations, replacing the destroyed transporter-erector with a vertical integration approach, and 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] The accident directly affects NASA's lunar schedule, because New Glenn is the launch vehicle for the Blue Moon landers.[4]
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 completed thermal vacuum testing in the historic Chamber A at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 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] In September 2025 NASA selected a second MK1 to deliver the revived VIPER rover to the south pole in late 2027, a task order worth up to 190 million dollars.[6]
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. 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]
Engines and other ventures
Blue Origin is also a major engine supplier: its BE-4 powers United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur as well as New Glenn. 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. As of 2026, the company employs more than 10,000 people across Washington, Texas, Florida, and Alabama.
References
- Blue Origin to Pause New Shepard Flights for No Less Than Two Years - Blue Origin.
- New Glenn rocket explodes on Cape Canaveral pad - SpaceNews.
- Blue Origin reuses huge New Glenn rocket for 1st time, lands booster at sea - but deploys satellite into wrong orbit - Space.com.
- 'A pretty significant setback': How Blue Origin's rocket explosion affects NASA's moon plans - Space.com.
- Blue Origin Moon Lander Completes Testing at NASA Vacuum Chamber - NASA.
- NASA Selects Blue Origin to Deliver VIPER Rover to Moon's South Pole - NASA.
- NASA Marches Toward Artemis III Mission in 2027, Names Crew Members - NASA.
