Blue Origin Pulls a Shocker - or Two

The Blue Origin news shocked me.  You might remember the early January story about a mechanical mock-up of their New Glenn rocket being on the pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and it getting lots of press coverage despite the hardware being prominently labeled "NOT FOR FLIGHT."  They've done themselves one better.  

On Wednesday, engineers rolled a full-scale New Glenn rocket, partially made up of flight hardware, to launch complex 36 on CCSFS for ground testing. 

The first New Glenn launch is almost certainly at least six months away, and it may not even happen this year. In the last few years, observers inside and outside the space industry have become accustomed to the nearly annual ritual of another New Glenn launch delay. New Glenn's inaugural flight has been delayed from 2020 until 2021, then 2022, and for now, is slated for later this year.

But it feels different now. Blue Origin is obviously moving closer to finally launching a rocket into orbit.

On the face of it, this makes me think about some of the things discussed back in December about Bezos Saying the quiet part out loud in a two hour interview with podcaster Lex Fridman to talk about Amazon, Blue Origin, his business practices, and more.

During the interview, Bezos candidly acknowledged this. "Blue Origin needs to be much faster, and it's one of the reasons that I left my role as the CEO of Amazon a couple of years ago," he said. "I wanted to come in, and Blue Origin needs me right now. Adding some energy, some sense of urgency. We need to move much faster. And we're going to."

Part of the efforts Bezos has been putting in included hiring Blue's new CEO Dave Limp, to push that effort to move faster, and be more decisive.  It seems the staff has gotten the memo and that December article about the mock-up being at the pad is evidence of that.  Not just the mock-up but mounting a test article second stage to a flight-rated first stage and testing mechanical fits and interconnections at the pad. 

The New Glenn on the pad at LC-36 is flight hardware and it will be subjected to all the tests required to prepare a vehicle for launch.  

Getting New Glenn to the launch pad is a major milestone for Blue Origin. This is undoubtedly a turning point for the privately funded New Glenn program, but there is a lot left to do before the rocket is ready to fly.

The next step will involve "several demonstrations of cryogenic fluid loading, pressure control, and the vehicle's venting systems," Blue Origin said. According to a report published by Aviation Week, Blue Origin will load this particular test vehicle with cryogenic liquid nitrogen as a stand-in for the super-cold methane and liquid oxygen propellants used by the first stage booster on an actual launch. The upper stage won't be loaded during this upcoming Integrated Tanking Test (ITT).

Dave Limp, Blue Origin's new CEO, left, and founder Jeff Bezos observe the New Glenn rocket on its launch pad Wednesday at CCSFS.  Image credit: Jeff Bezos via Instagram.

New Glenn has been easy to ignore because it has been like a twin of SLS in being consistently late.  The first flight of the heavy-lift rocket has been talked about and missed every year since 2020 and is being talked about for later this year -- with a lot of people saying it will be 2025.  While we may smirk at the small launch startups and say, "nice, but they've never made orbit," Blue Origin has never made orbit either. That means New Glenn may be the oldest rocket design - on paper - that has never flown. 

It's capable of lifting payloads to orbit of nearly 100,000 pounds, which ranks it above ULA's Vulcan Centaur and behind SpaceX's Falcon Heavy.  It has been designed with reuse in mind, with a target of 25 missions at minimum, with the first stage intended to land on an offshore recovery ship much like the Falcon 9.  At more than 320 feet tall, New Glenn is roughly the same height as the SLS rocket and nearly as tall as the Saturn V used in the Apollo program.  Only the Starship/Super Heavy towers above it.

Because of that "launch was talked about and missed every year since 2020" history, I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of doubt and say New Glenn will launch this year, although if you read that linked article at Ars Technica, you may come away thinking they will make it this year.  I'll be happy for them and interested in watching the first launch, but "I'll believe it when I see it." 

Did I say two shockers?

Making news yesterday is that it appears Blue Origin is going to be the buyer of United Launch Alliance. 

Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has emerged as the sole finalist to buy United Launch Alliance.

The sale is not official, and nothing has been formally announced. The co-owners of United Launch Alliance (ULA), Lockheed Martin and Boeing, have yet to comment publicly on the sale of the company, which, until the rise of SpaceX, was the sole major launch provider in the United States. They declined again on Wednesday.

I find it interesting that Bezos is on record selling $2.4 billion in Amazon stock and, in his mandatory securities filings, disclosed that he could sell an additional $8 billion to $9 billion in stock over the next 12 months.  While there's no real quoted price to buy ULA, industry speculation is that it would be sold for somewhere around 2 to $3 billion.  How convenient.  He can buy ULA with some cash he figuratively recovered from between his sofa cushions.