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Rocket company Blue Origin has several government contracts, says the Financial Times. This week, it received a $468 million grant from NASA for two unmanned landing modules that will be used to support plans for a lunar base as part of a wider US ambition to return humans to the moon by the end of 2028.
On Monday, the New Glenn rocket was due to deliver 48 satellites for Amazon’s Leo internet network. Blue Origin is seeking to increase the frequency of launches and had planned to fly 12 missions on New Glenn this year to compete with Ilon Musk’s SpaceX.
The latter’s reaction to the New Glenn incident was unexpectedly restrained. “Extremely unfortunate,” Musk wrote on Platform X. – Rockets are hard to deal with.”
Perhaps this cautious assessment is due to Musk’s own failures. His company SpaceX lost one of its Starship rockets – the largest ever produced – on a test stand last June after a “serious malfunction”, the FT recalls. Several launches ended with the company losing control of the rocket.
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin takes a more cautious approach to launches, but has also faced delays and its own failures.
From competitors to partners
The latest incident may even encourage the two rival companies to collaborate, analysts suggest.
The fact is that Amazon is counting on Blue Origin’s help in meeting the deadlines set by regulators for the creation of its Internet group Leo. The company paid Blue Origin $2.7 billion to help it launch its satellites.
In a related development, Josh Parker, an analyst at Capstone, a Washington-based consulting firm, said Thursday’s failure will force Blue Origin’s customers to sign additional contracts with SpaceX. “The biggest competitor [SpaceX] and the only other company to reuse a launch vehicle is put out of business,” the Financial Times quoted him as saying.
