Blue Origin has been making leaps of progress toward making civilian space travel a reality by developing reusable, cost-effective rocket technology. The company is expanding its operations and looking for new launch sites to add to its existing collection in Texas, Washington, Florida, and Alabama consisting of ten facilities.
The next launch location hasn’t been determined yet, though Engadget has reported the company is likely to settle somewhere in Europe along with developing more international partnerships.
“We’re looking for anything we can do to acquire, to scale up to better serve our customers. It’s not a function of size — rather how much it accelerates our road map of what we’re trying to get done,” said Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin.
Founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, the company has “a vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. Blue Origin envisions a time when people can tap into the limitless resources of space and enable the movement of damaging industries into space to preserve Earth, humanity’s blue origin.”
Blue Origin is the first company to bring civilians to space. In recent years, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been giving Blue Origin a run for its money. The companies have similar goals in the latest space race, both wanting to make commercial space flight an obtainable goal while also launching satellite constellation systems in low Earth orbit.
Blue Origin has been working tirelessly to build New Glenn, a more powerful rocket intended to launch Amazon’s satellite constellation to rival Starlink. The company is also prepping to create a privately funded space station in a bid to replace the International Space Station, slated to be decommissioned in 2031.
Last May, NASA contracted Blue Origin to develop a lunar lander and a cislunar transporter to bring astronauts back to the Moon, a $3.4 billion dollar collaboration for the Artemis V mission. SpaceX has already secured the first two Artemis partnerships.