Blue Origin

Blue Origin unveils TeraWave, a 5,408-satellite broadband network across LEO and MEO delivering up to 6 Tbps for enterprise and government customers, with deployment beginning Q4 2027.

After 38 flights, 98 humans flown to space, and more than 200 research payloads, Blue Origin pauses New Shepard flights for no less than two years to redirect resources toward its lunar human flight program.

New Glenn's third flight (April 19) reuses and lands a first-stage booster, but one of two upper-stage BE-3U engines underperforms during the second burn, leaving AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 in too low an orbit. The FAA issues a launch moratorium, grounding New Glenn pending an investigation that is compounded by separate ground-facility damage.

On May 22, 2026 the FAA approves Blue Origin's mishap report and lifts the New Glenn grounding. Blue Origin identifies the root cause as a cryogenic leak that froze a hydraulic line, causing an off-nominal thermal condition before the second BE-3U burn and a thrust shortfall. Nine corrective actions are committed before NG-4.

Blue Origin's first Blue Moon Mark 1 (Endurance) cargo lunar lander completes environmental testing inside Thermal Vacuum Chamber A at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, with structural and thermal integrity verified ahead of radio-frequency compatibility testing at Lunar Plant 1. Endurance is being prepared for a launch to the lunar south pole later in 2026 on New Glenn.

On May 28, around 9 p.m. EDT, a New Glenn rocket bursts into a fireball during a static fire test at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 36 — Blue Origin's only New Glenn pad. The vehicle was being prepared to launch 49 Amazon Leo satellites as soon as June 4; no injuries are reported, but lightning towers and the transporter erector appear damaged, pushing the next New Glenn flight further into the future.

On June 2, 2026 CEO Dave Limp posts that Blue Origin will fly New Glenn again before the end of 2026 despite the May 28 LC-36 explosion, citing better-than-expected pad damage: the propellant farm, water tower, an additional flight-ready booster, and three nearby upper stages all look in good shape. Blue Origin will pivot to an alternative vertical assembly approach rather than wait for a new transporter-erector and rules out skipping straight to the larger 9x4 New Glenn variant.

Reporting in mid-May 2026 (GeekWire, TechCrunch, The Next Web) reveals that, after 26 years funded almost entirely by Jeff Bezos's annual ~$1B Amazon stock sales, Blue Origin is now exploring its first outside investment round. CEO Dave Limp tells staff that scaling to roughly 100 launches per year will require more capital than a single investor can provide. Capstone Partners estimates Blue Origin will spend ~$4.8B in 2026 with cumulative investment approaching $28B, amid a SpaceX IPO push that is reframing investor appetite for the sector.

On May 26, 2026 NASA selected Blue Origin for two Commercial Lunar Payload Services task orders — worth $188M with a $280.4M option period — to deliver the first Lunar Terrain Vehicles to the Moon's south pole using Blue Moon Mark 1 landers launched on New Glenn. NASA is separately funding the rovers themselves: Astrolab's crewed CLV-1 ($219M) and Lunar Outpost's Pegasus ($220M), both LTVs targeted to launch in 2028 under the agency's Moon Base Phase One initiative. Blue Origin has begun work on two additional Blue Moon Mark 1 landers for the deliveries and, per July 2026 reporting, has insulated the lander program from the LC-36 pad-recovery effort by continuing risk-reduction testing on schedule.

On May 28, 2026 — hours before the LC-36 hotfire explosion — the U.S. Space Force awarded Blue Origin its first National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 task order (NRO Task Order-4), directing a National Reconnaissance Office satellite launch from Cape Canaveral in Q4 2027 or Q1 2028. Lane 1 is reserved for missions that can accept greater schedule and performance risk than the military's most critical payloads, giving Blue Origin an entry point into national security launch while New Glenn recovers. A May 29 Space Force press release confirmed it remains a 'committed partner' and that the ground-test explosion does not trigger disqualification under Phase 3 rules.

Through mid-June 2026 Blue Origin begins rebuilding Launch Complex 36 after the May 28 hotfire explosion, with Jeff Bezos and CEO Dave Limp saying around June 17 that recovery is making good progress. The company reports that the propellant tanks and a processing hangar survived the blast and that the damaged main support gantry can be repaired in place, keeping a New Glenn return to flight before the end of 2026 — and a Blue Moon MK1 'Endurance' lunar launch this year — on the table.

On June 30, 2026 Blue Origin outlined a redesigned launch-pad concept of operations for returning New Glenn to flight after the May 28 LC-36 explosion. Rather than replace the destroyed transporter-erector, the company will mate the rocket's stages horizontally in the integration facility, roll the integrated vehicle to the pad, and use a crane to raise it vertical, installing the payload only after the rocket is upright — an approach it says also increases long-term flight cadence. Blue Origin reiterated it aims to return New Glenn to flight by the end of 2026, and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called its response 'almost beyond impressive.'

By early July 2026 Blue Origin said hardware recovery and debris removal at Launch Complex 36 were complete and reconstruction had begun following the May 28 hotfire explosion. Under the hybrid horizontal-integration/crane-erect plan, the company aims to have a rebuilt LC-36A ready by the end of 2026 for New Glenn's return to flight, and expects a second pad, LC-36B, in service by late 2027 to raise long-term launch cadence. Blue Origin reiterated it has insulated the Blue Moon lunar-lander program from the pad-recovery effort so risk-reduction testing continues on schedule.

On July 8, 2026 multiple outlets reported that Blue Origin is raising about $10 billion at a $130 billion pre-money valuation — its first-ever external fundraising round after 26 years funded almost entirely by Jeff Bezos. Coatue is expected to invest roughly $4 billion and Bezos himself about $2 billion, with other large investors covering the balance. The raise turns the company's long-signaled openness to outside capital into a concrete round, coming after the late-May New Glenn hotfire explosion and amid surging investor appetite for space following SpaceX's record IPO.

New Glenn launches for the first time from Cape Canaveral on January 16, 2025, reaching orbit and deploying the Blue Ring Pathfinder payload. Booster landing attempt unsuccessful.

NASA awards Blue Origin a CLPS task order with a total potential value of $190 million to deliver the VIPER rover to the Moon's south pole in late 2027 using a Blue Moon Mark 1 lander.

The U.S. Space Force awards Blue Origin a National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 contract with an anticipated value of about $2.386 billion. Blue Origin is projected to receive seven missions starting in order year 2 as it completes eligibility milestones.

On its second flight (NG-2) in November 2025, New Glenn successfully lands its first-stage booster on the drone ship Jacklyn while deploying NASA's ESCAPADE Mars probes — a historic achievement on only the rocket's second attempt.

Blue Origin unveils the New Glenn 9x4 roadmap variant, designed to carry more than 70 metric tons to low Earth orbit with a larger 8.7-meter fairing alongside the existing 7x2 vehicle.

BE-4 engines power ULA's Vulcan Centaur on its inaugural flight in January 2024, the first American-made oxygen-rich staged combustion engine to fly.

NASA selects Blue Origin to develop its Blue Moon human landing system for Artemis V. The contract includes an uncrewed lunar demonstration mission before a crewed Artemis V landing in 2029.

Blue Origin announces Honeybee Robotics will join the company, adding planetary robotics, drills, and mechanisms expertise for lunar surface operations.

Jeff Bezos and three crew members fly to space on New Shepard's first crewed mission (NS-16).

New Shepard becomes the first rocket to fly to space and land vertically for reuse.

Jeff Bezos founds Blue Origin with a vision of enabling millions of people to live and work in space.