Blue Origin

What Blue Origin does

Blue Origin is a privately held space company founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The Associated Press, in a January 2025 report, dated the founding to 25 years earlier. NASA describes it as based in Kent, Washington. Its main vehicle is New Glenn, a heavy-lift rocket. Seven BE-4 engines power its reusable first stage. Blue Origin also builds the Blue Moon lunar landers and New Shepard, a suborbital tourism rocket. Dave Limp has been chief executive since 2023. He previously ran Amazon's devices and services division. In 2026 the company announced TeraWave, a planned network of 5,408 satellites, and asked U.S. regulators to approve Project Sunrise, over 50,000 satellites that would do computing in orbit.

Why it matters

Blue Origin and SpaceX are the two companies building crewed Moon landers for NASA. NASA announced Blue Origin's $3.4 billion contract in May 2023. NASA has since ordered a roughly $190 million delivery of the VIPER rover. On September 1, 2026, it awarded Blue Origin a roughly $700 million contract to build its Mars Telecommunications Network. In April 2025 the U.S. Space Force said it expected to award Blue Origin seven of 54 planned national security launches. In November 2025 it became the second company, after SpaceX, to land the booster of an orbital rocket. TechCrunch said that could let it compete with SpaceX.

Recent developments

New Glenn suffered two failures in 2026. On April 19 the third flight reused a booster for the first time. But an upper-stage engine problem left an AST SpaceMobile satellite in too low an orbit. It was lost. On May 28 a rocket exploded during a static fire test ahead of a planned launch of Amazon Leo satellites. It happened at Launch Complex 36 in Florida, then the company's only orbital launch pad. Blue Origin said all personnel were safe. In August, Limp said the failure began at the main oxygen valve of one BE-4 engine, Spaceflight Now reported. That month the company said it expected its first Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander to launch in early 2027.

After the explosion, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency would decouple the landers from New Glenn and its pad. NASA's inspector general had already reported in March 2026 that both lander companies faced schedule delays. It said storing and transferring super-cold propellant in space was among Blue Origin's biggest technical challenges. On January 30, 2026, Blue Origin paused New Shepard flights for at least two years to concentrate on lunar work.

TechCrunch, citing the New York Times, reported in July 2026 that Blue Origin was raising $10 billion at a $130 billion pre-money valuation. The reported sum included about $4 billion from Coatue and $2 billion from Bezos, in what would be its first outside fundraise. On September 29, NASA said it had added the larger New Glenn 9x4 to its launch services contract.

What to watch

• Return to flight. Limp said in June 2026 that New Glenn would fly again before the end of the year. The company still held that goal in August, per Spaceflight Now.
• Lunar deadlines. NASA plans a 2027 docking test in Earth orbit with one or both landers and a first landing in 2028, according to its revised Artemis plan.
• The 9x4 variant and TeraWave. Blue Origin says the 9x4 can lift over 70 metric tons to low Earth orbit. It plans to deploy TeraWave's first satellites in late 2027.
• Orbital data centers. TechCrunch reported in March 2026 that experts do not expect such projects before the 2030s.