Successful flights of New Glenn rockets indicate that Blue Origin may be achieving its transformative milestone | Tracer Tecz

Under the leadership of CEO Bob Smith the space company founded by Jeff Bezos has produced inadequate performance. Throughout his tenure most employees held negative opinions about Blue Origin's executive chief leader Bob Smith. From his Honeywell background Smith delivered "old space" methods that damaged Blue Origin operations. During Smith's term as Blue Origin leader the company became known for endless court battles alongside its minimal output and sluggish progress.

The Western spaceflight industry wants new competition against SpaceX's growing dominance yet it finds criticism from Ars toward Blue Origin about not maximizing its potential. About eighteen months ago Bezos selected Dave Limp to take the place of Bob Smith. He entrusted the direction of Blue Origin to Dave Limp who came from Amazon after a year at the position.

Since taking over as Blue Origin's leader in December 2023 Limp has established himself as a powerful presence at the company despite questions that first arose about his lack of aerospace experience. Since I've known him Limp remains enthusiastic about leading Blue Origin toward improving its performance while directing the company into a new direction. His mission emerges directly from Bezos' mandate to expedite program execution at Blue Origin.

According to Limp employees at Blue Origin share complete faith in the organization's mission to establish space-based living and working facilities for millions of people. The foundation served as the base to construct future work. I believe achieving organizational focus was vital since Blue Origin embarked on this mission. Our current operations involved multiple complex projects.

We still have multiple projects in progress but ensuring our main priorities reach the organization this year was vital to progress. Our progress remained stagnant due to our inability to develop engines and launch technology we needed for New Glenn.

Limp and Bezos and I met this month on a Florida facility balcony which overlooks the main factory that constructs future New Glenn rockets apparently felt an urgent need. The noise of factory equipment interfered multiple times throughout our conversation making our voices hard to hear. A few days after its maiden launch the New Glenn rocket finished its initial test flight.

The orbiter's first launch ran perfectly during nominal conditions marking a major victory for an enterprise completing its initial orbital mission. The launch team did not anticipate retrieving the first stage as their maiden flight was in progress. Rocket companies earn their recognition as real rocket companies only through satellite orbital achievements according to aerospace professionals and tech workers.

According to industry standards Blue Origin meets qualifications to be considered a "real rocket company." The company's first orbital launch alongside Limp's leadership combined with Bezos' fresh energy signals a significant point forward for Blue Origin's future operations.

We need to improve our capability to construct cohesive rocket engines while also achieving routine missions with New Glenn vehicles. Throughout his speech Bezos adopted some of the same language that SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been using to describe building both SpaceX rockets and Tesla vehicles since the past decade. During our interview Bezos emphasized that building the manufacturing system and implementing a sense of urgency for their core piece of equipment were the company's most crucial actions.

According to Bezos the build process for the Blue Origin factory at Huntsville Alabama required extensive time both for startup operations and effective production optimization. The Florida-based factory for second stage manufacturing has parallel operations to Huntsville Alabama just like this one, he explained. Our priority is to quickly manufacture multiple second-stage rocket components.

Our manufacturing needs to produce both many booster stages and numerous second stages. Our production facilities operate on a complete vertical process because we create everything from igniters to valves in-house. The production of every component required for rockets should proceed at maximized volume throughput rates.

uture plans for Blue Origin focus on making New Glenn capable of full reusability. Notable aerospace publication Ars published its findings about Blue Origin's "Project Jarvis" initiative for its reusable stainless steel stage upper in 2021. To advance the reusability push Blue Origin constructed an experimental tank system yet this development path was discontinued. The rocket's existing top section elevates 23 meters (77 feet) as it operates using two BE-3U engine units.

Several industry sources agree that New Glenn's development is weighed down by its initial upper stage design which proves excessively expensive. Bezos said the company would "compete" two solutions to this problem against one another: pillioduel upper stage development alongside stage cost reduction to improve cost affordability. New Glenn's manufacturing efficiencies could make an expendable upper stage a scalable pricing solution through time even when compared to reusable launch systems according to Bezos.

Our tactics will focus on producing the expendable upper stage in such low-cost manufacturing volumes that reuse of the stage becomes impractical. The price of our reusable flight system will remain so economical that future cost-effective flight systems cannot compete with inclusively reusables flight systems. The launch trajectory between Blue Origin and its competition for launch domination will evolve throughout the upcoming years during its efforts to speed up its flight frequency. Bezos promised we will see which approach prevails. You can't establish success through documents alone.

According to Limp: "These heavy lift vehicles maintain significant potential to lower operational expenses even more." The present cost for missions targeting orbital and lunar destinations is too high because we need to halve the expenses and operations. A look at the automotive sector and television industry demonstrates substantial cost reduction potential. The launch system has initiated the first stages of this cost-saving goal.

It’s still day one Blue Origin uses Gradatim Ferociter as its official motto translating directly from Latin to mean "Step by Step, Ferociously." Ars highly appreciates Latin vocabulary (We're big fans of Latin at Ars.) The name that makes you stumble here is Latin for "the art of technology" where we focus our coverage. Space industry insiders repeatedly joke there should be "more ferociter" and less "gradatim" in Blue Origin's efforts.

The official logo of the company displays two prominent turtle images. Each space flight of New Shepard carries a turtle stamp as part of its spacecraft insignia. In this reference the developers draw from one of Aesop's Fables titled "The Tortoise and the Hare" featuring a winning tortoise through steady speed instead of quickness. The space race belongs to Blue Origin according to Bezos' assessment that the company represents the successful slow and steady tortoise.

The supporters of Blue Origin claim it operated mostly as a research facility throughout its first ten years before moving into commercial development. Blue Origin began developing hardware during about 2005 despite the fact that some components could be classified as think tank work. During my time reporting about SpaceX's early years I interviewed numerous engineers who switched between SpaceX and Blue Origin teams.

Rivalry between top academic institutions alongside their graduate rocket scientists intensified sharply during that period. Blue Origin began its operation as a think tank while remaining small yet it has engaged in hardware development throughout the previous twenty years.

Above all these steps what final achievements has the company produced? The company's New Shepard launch system completed its thirty-eighth successful flight. The BE-4 rocket engines from Blue Origin have propelled two United Launch Alliance Vulcan rockets into orbital flight. This month Blue Origin launched its new New Glenn rocket. Examining Blue Origin against SpaceX stands as a truly harsh assessment because SpaceX outranks them as the main character within this metaphor.

But it's necessary to do so. Since its establishment in 2002 SpaceX operated about 450 orbital rocket launches while Blue Origin performed only one such mission. Since its launch Blue Origin has deployed around 6 dozen individuals into space orbital missions thus freeing NASA from dependent positioning on Russia while international tensions escalated. The constant orbiting Starlink satellites enable worldwide broadband Internet delivery. SpaceX engineers are developing the world's largest rocket Starship for complete reuse ability.

During the research for my book Reentry about SpaceX's Falcon 9 missions I interviewed someone who had experience at both companies. I inquired about the largest environmental variation between the two organizations. According to interview records from early Limp's tenure many years ago this statement demonstrates how intensive the project remained.

According to this source Blue Origin remains the world’s largest organization funded by a single private donor. SpaceX doesn't experience any motivation because "There is zero incentive to operate like SpaceX." Like, zero. The organization maintains its revenue stream such that I will get feedings regardless of performance. The doors will never close. Their position in the industry creates a massive initial hurdle to overcome.

A funding model structured like this draws engineers who want to develop extraordinary projects at reasonable pay levels. Once you join this organization can you devote your time to building space elevator systems and receive monetary compensation? What sort of individuals wish to develop space elevators? So there’s a selection bias. The team needs extraordinary solutions to compensate for this but the organization lacks the required measures.

Blue Origin has produced superior quality products considering its operations to date. New Shepard stands as the industry standard for suborbital space passenger travel. The BE-4 engine has performed excellently. The New Glenn captured a major success by achieving outstanding results during its maiden voyage. Several experts within the industrial sector want Blue Origin to accelerate its operations until it delivers performance matching SpaceX. I asked Bezos about this. He responded by saying "Stay tuned."

We stand at the threshold of the Space Age now. Several centuries from now history writers will chronicle the 1960s as the starting point for a particular direction in human advancement through their exceptional achievements. The starting phase has ended because we recently launched into full speed. The space competition with the Soviets moved ahead despite nature drawing it toward its proper moment. The genuine space movement and its golden era are finally ready to take place. It's still absolutely day one.

The space race will produce diverse winners both now and in the distant future. From its initial deployments SpaceX will achieve overall commercial success. The aerospace corporation Blue Origin shows every indication of achieving substantial success. Space companies that haven't started operations yet will discover future success developing into massive space corporations. I think people should have this perspective about space: We have just started.

People cannot overlook the vast dimensions of the New Glenn factory located in Florida when they move through that facility. Multiple first and second stages in different developmental stages characterize the company's substantial hardware base. According to Bezos multiple launches during this year are coming into realization. A mock-up of Blue Origin's initial lunar lander Mark 1 stands three stories tall in the main building's lobby. It towers three stories tall. It's massive.

CREDIT: Blue Origin