Blue Origin
Blue Origin is a privately held US-based aerospace company, which was founded in September 2000 and focused on the implementation of suborbital flights. The company belongs to the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Business
The headquarters is located south of Seattle, where the research and development department is located in Kent (Washington), a suburb. The test site is located on the Corn Ranch in Culberson County ( Texas), north of the town of Van Horn.
An article in the Economic Journal "The Economist" in 2004 reported that the company wants to build a space ship that can launch vertically with its own drive and land. It should use the fuels hydrogen peroxide and kerosene. In January 2005, Jeff Bezos announced that the highly specific spaceship three or more people to bring them to the edge of space.
The spacecraft, which has got the working title " New Shepard " is fully equipped with onboard computers, and thus can be flown without ground control. After the start of passenger flights, the company expects 52 flights per year. Blue Origin planned first unmanned flights for 2011, the first manned launch should take place in 2012.
The first prototype, made his first successful flight on 13 November 2006, was named after the Goddard rocket pioneer Robert Goddard.
Test flights
- First test flight of the Goddard: November 13, 2006, 13:30 CEST, has successfully after a vertical take-off reaches a height of 90 meters.
- Second test flight of the Goddard on March 22, 2007.
- Third test flight of the Goddard on 19 April 2007.
- Fourth Test Flight New Shepard drive module ( PM2) on May 6, 2011.
- Fifth test flight New Shepard drive module ( PM2) on August 24, 2011. (Total engine failure, blown up to 13,700 m)
Commercial Crew Development Program
As part of the Commercial Crew Development program promotes the NASA enterprises that operate in manned space programs. It is worked on it that private providers may manned flights to the ISS perform. In this framework, Blue Origin received 3.7 million U.S. dollars. In the long term it is planned New Shepard or a successor by an Atlas V launch rocket so that it can achieve an orbit.