Blue Origin

The company was founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Rob Meyerson joined the company in 2003 and served as the CEO before leaving the company in 2018. Bob Smith served as CEO from 2018 to 2023. The current CEO is Dave Limp. Little is known about the company's activities in its early years. In 2006, the company purchased land for its New Shepard missions 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas, United States called Launch Site One (LS1). In November 2006, the first test vehicle was launched, the Goddard rocket, which reached an altitude of 285 feet.

After initiating the development of an orbital rocket system prior to 2012, and stating in 2013 on their website that the first stage would perform a powered vertical landing and be reusable, the company publicly announced their orbital launch vehicle intentions in September 2015. In January 2016, the company indicated that the new rocket would be many times larger than New Shepard. The company publicly released the high-level design of the vehicle and announced its name in September 2016 as "New Glenn". The New Glenn heavy-lift launch vehicle can be configured in both two-stage and three-stage variants. New Glenn first successfully launched in January, 2025.

On July 20, 2021, New Shepard performed its first crewed mission to sub-orbital space called Blue Origin NS-16. The flight lasted approximately 10 minutes and crossed the Kármán line. The passengers were Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen, after the unnamed auction winner (later revealed to have been Justin Sun) dropped out due to a scheduling conflict. Subsequent New Shepard passenger and cargo missions were: Blue Origin NS-17, Blue Origin NS-18, Blue Origin NS-19, Blue Origin NS-20, Blue Origin NS-21 and Blue Origin NS-23.

The company primarily employs an incremental approach from sub-orbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company moved into the orbital spaceflight technology development business in 2014, initially as a rocket engine supplier via a contractual agreement to build the BE-4 rocket engine, for major US launch system operator United Launch Alliance (ULA). United Launch Alliance (ULA) has said that the first flight of its Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift launch vehicle is scheduled to launch in Q4 of 2023. …

New Shepard is a fully reusable sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and landings and can carry humans and customer payloads to the edge of space.

The New Shepard is a rocket that consists of a booster rocket and a crew capsule. The capsule can be configured to house up to six passengers, cargo, or a combination of both. The booster rocket is powered by one BE-3PM engine, which sends the capsule to an apogee of 100.5 kilometres (62.4 mi) and flies above the Kármán line, where passengers and cargo can experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the capsule returns to Earth.

The launch vehicle is designed to be fully reusable, with the capsule returning to Earth via three parachutes and a solid rocket motor. The booster lands vertically on the same launchpad it took off from. The company has successfully launched and landed the New Shepard launch vehicle 26 times with one partial failure (deemed successful) and one failure. The launch vehicle has a length of 19.2 metres (63 ft), a diameter of 3.8 metres (12 ft) and a launch mass of 75 short tons (150,000 lb; 68,000 kg). The BE-3PM engine produces 490 kN of thrust at takeoff. The New Shepard allows the company to significantly reduce the cost of space tourism.

On the morning of February 25, 2025, Blue Origin launched its 10th space tourism mission and sent six paying passengers to suborbital space. This was the company's tenth human flight, and its 30th overall flight of New Shepard.

New Glenn is a heavy-lift launch vehicle, first successfully launched in January 2025. The initial launch date had been set back by numerous delays. Named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, design work on the vehicle began in early 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. The full vehicle was first unveiled on a launch pad on February 21, 2024. The rocket has a diameter of 7 meters (23 ft), and its first stage is powered by seven BE-4 engines. The fairing is claimed to have twice the payload volume of "any commercial launch system" and to be the biggest payload fairing in the world.

Like the New Shepard, New Glenn's first stage is also designed to be reusable. …

In May 2019, Bezos unveiled plans for a crew-capable lunar lander named Blue Moon. The lander is designed to transport up to 3,600 kilograms (7,900 lb) to the lunar surface in its standard configuration, while a stretched-tank variant can carry up to 6,500 kilograms (14,300 lb). Both versions are engineered for soft landings on the Moon.

In 2020, Blue Origin, in collaboration with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper, submitted the Blue Moon lunar lander proposal for NASA's Artemis program. After NASA awarded the human landing system (HLS) contract to SpaceX in 2021 for its Starship HLS, Blue Origin contested the decision. This challenge ultimately led to NASA awarding a separate contract for Blue Moon in 2023.

The lander is powered by the BE-7 hydrolox engine. On May 19, 2023, NASA contracted Blue Origin to develop, test, and deploy the Blue Moon landing system for the Artemis V mission. This mission will support lunar exploration and lay the groundwork for future crewed missions to Mars. The $3.4 billion contract includes an uncrewed test mission followed by a crewed Moon landing planned for 2029.

In mid-2024, Blue Origin announced the successful completion of initial acceptance testing on the thrusters for the MK1 variant of the Blue Moon lander.

Blue Origin's first engine is a "simple, single-propellant engine" called the Blue Engine-1 (BE-1) which uses peroxide propellant and generates 8.9 kN (2,000 lbf) of thrust.

The Blue Engine-2 (BE-2) which is a bipropellant engine using kerosene and peroxide, produces 140 kN (31,000 lbf) of thrust.

The BE-3 is a family of rocket engines made by Blue Origin with two variants, the BE-3U and BE-3PM. The rocket engine is a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen (LH2/LOX) cryogenic engine that can produce 490 kN (110,000 lbf) and 710 kN (160,000 lbf) of thrust, respectively. Early thrust chamber testing began at NASA Stennis in 2013. By late 2013, the BE-3 had been successfully tested on a full-duration sub-orbital burn, with simulated coast phases and engine relights, "demonstrating deep throttle, full power, long-duration and reliable restart all in a single-test sequence." NASA has released a video of the test. As of December 2013, the engine had demonstrated more than 160 starts and 9,100 seconds (2.5 h) of operation at the company's test facility near Van Horn, Texas.

The BE-4 is a liquid oxygen/liquified natural gas (LOX/LNG) rocket engine that can produce 2,400 kN (550,000 lbf) of thrust.

In late 2014, the company signed an agreement with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to develop the BE-4 engine, for ULA's upgraded Atlas V and Vulcan Centaur rockets replacing the RD-180 Russian-made rocket engine. The newly developed heavy-lift launch vehicle will use two of the 2,400 kN (550,000 lbf) BE-4 engines on each first stage. The engine development program for the BE-4 began in 2011.

On October 31, 2022, a Twitter post by the official Blue Origin account announced that the first two BE-4 engines had been delivered to ULA and were being integrated on a Vulcan rocket. In a later tweet, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said that one of the engines had already been installed on the booster, and that the other would be joining it momentarily. …

The company has facilities across the United States, which include five main locations and five field offices:

The company's headquarters is in Kent, Washington. Rocket development takes place at its headquarters. The company has continued to expand its Seattle-area offices and rocket production facilities since 2016, purchasing an adjacent 11,000 m (120,000 ft)-building. In 2017, the company filed permits to build a new 21,900 m (236,000 ft) warehouse complex and an additional 9,560 m (102,900 ft) of office space. The company established a new headquarters and R&D facility, called the O'Neill Building on June 6, 2020.

Corn Ranch, commonly referred to as Launch Site One (LSO) is the company's launch site 30 miles (48 km) north of Van Horn, Texas.

The site hosts the company's sub-orbital launch pad for its New Shepard rocket along with a landing pad. Additionally, LSO has a number of rocket engine test stands and engine test cells are to support the hydrolox, methalox and storable propellant engines. There are three test cells for the BE-3 and BE-4 engines. The test cells support full-thrust and full-duration burns, and one supports short-duration, high-pressure preburner tests.

Engine production is located in Huntsville, Alabama, at a 600,000-square-foot (56,000 m) facility called, "Blue Engine". The company's Web site states, "The world-class engine manufacturing facility in The Rocket City conduct[s] high rate production of the BE-4 and BE-3U engines.

The company is planning a third major expansion in Huntsville and the company purchased 14.83 acres (6 ha) adjacent to its already sprawling campus at the price of $1.427 million.

The Orbital Launch Site (OLS) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, develops rockets and conducts extensive testing. The company converted Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) to launch New Glenn into orbit at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The facility was initially completed in 2020 and is being used for the construction of New Glenn prototypes, rocket testing, and designs.

The company facility is situated on 306 acres (124 ha) of land assembled from the former Launch complexes 11, 12, 36A and 36B. …