Blue Origin

Back in March, NASA announced it would seek to award a contract to purchase a second lunar lander for the Artemis Program. We’re seeing many similar faces return with bids for NASA’s money, including Blue Origin with a revised National Team of other notable aerospace contractors.

This week, Seth and Jared discuss what happened during Blue Origin’s mid-flight abort, the new Artemis 1 launch date, and more space news.

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On Blue Origin’s 23rd flight of New Shepard, NS-23, the uncrewed capsule ignited its abort system to get clear from the New Shepard rocket as flame appeared around the rocket main engine as the rocket crossed 28,000 feet.

Coby Cotton, one of the five members of Dude Perfect, launched on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket early Thursday morning. Cotton’s participation is part of a partnership between the trick shooting YouTubers and a crypto company called MoonDAO.

United Launch Alliance is preparing for the debut flight of its next generation rocket called Vulcan. There are certain developments to follow, however, while the first mission date awaits hardware readiness.

Everyone loves a good engine shot, and Bezos and Bruno are probably especially enjoying this one. Blue Origin shared shots of its BE-4 rocket engine in an important test phase today. Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is awaiting engine readiness before his company’s New Glenn rocket can take flight, and United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno needs BE-4 engines for its Vulcan Centaur system.

Robin Hood holds an annual benefit to fight against poverty in New York City, and as a result of that auction, two New York City public school teachers will be getting a ride to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

While Richard Branson may have won the ‘billionaire space race‘ in one way, the fact that Virgin Galactic hasn’t flown since makes it clear that the real winners here are Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Looking toward Blue Origin’s fifth crewed spaceflight, the company will have a repeat passenger, as Evan Dick is set to take the joyride to space and back once again after his first flight late last year.

Early Thursday morning, Blue Origin fueled up and launched its New Shepard rocket at its West Texas launch site. Onboard were six passengers, including the chief architect of the rocket.

As part of its Artemis program, NASA announced plans to fund a second lunar lander alongside SpaceX’s Starship HLS.

NS-20, Blue Origin’s fourth human flight, is set to launch in just over a week. We’ve been waiting for the announcement of the sixth crew member after Pete Davidson left the crew. Now, that sixth crew member has been announced: Gary Lai, the senior director and chief architect of New Shepard, will be riding the vehicle he’s spent so long designing into space.

Blue Origin is preparing for its fourth human flight, and as previously rumored, SNL star Pete Davidson will take the flight this time around.

Back in June, Blue Origin’s auction for a seat on the first crewed flight of New Shepard ended with a $28 million bid. Yet as the first flight came around the winner was not announced. Instead, 18 year old Oliver Daemon joined the first flight and became the youngest person to fly in space.

Blue Origin only said that ‘scheduling issues’ stopped the auction winner from participating in the flight, but did not reveal the winner’s identity. Now the winner has been revealed as H.E. Justin Sun, and five people will be invited to join him on his journey to space.

On Saturday morning, the crew of Blue Origin’s NS-19 launched just past the boundary of space. This time the New Shepard capsule was full.

Watch Alan Shepard’s eldest daughter Laura Shepard Churchley and Good Morning American co-anchor Michael Strahan launch to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

This has been a big year for Space Tourism, from the sub-orbital hops of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson to the multi-day orbital journey of the Inspiration4 crew. This raised a number of questions about what it means to be an astronaut. Many claimed that these space-tourists are nothing but passengers, and calling them astronauts dilutes the title provided to space heroes like Neil Armstrong, while others said that reaching space should be enough for the title. The FAA has now put this question to bed, issuing this year’s space tourists FAA Commercial Astronaut wings, but shutting down the program moving forward.

On Thursday, NASA announced the selected contractors to develop designs for the future commercial space stations to replace the International Space Station.