The executive in charge of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital space program has laid out plans to scale up the operation for weekly launches — and says the company is looking into setting up a second launch site, perhaps outside the U.S.
Phil Joyce, Blue Origin’s senior vice president for New Shepard, discussed the road ahead over the weekend at the Global Spaceport Alliance’s International Spaceport Forum in Sydney, Australia. His remarks were reported by Aviation Week as well as SpaceNews.
Customer demand is a major factor behind the expansion plans. “The demand is really strong,” SpaceNews quoted Joyce as saying. “We’re continuing to see sales every week, every day.” Blue Origin’s backlog reportedly extends more than a year out.
To meet the demand, Jeff Bezos’ space venture plans to phase in three next-generation New Shepard rocket ships starting next year, Joyce said. Those vehicles would be powered by an upgraded version of Blue Origin’s hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine.
The plan calls for retiring the two reusable rocket ships that are currently carrying crew by the end of 2027.
Since 2015, Blue Origin has been flying New Shepard suborbital spacecraft at its Launch Site One facility in West Texas. The first 15 flights were uncrewed, leading up to the first crewed flight (with Bezos on board) in 2021. Starting with that mission, Blue Origin has sent 75 people on suborbital space trips, five of whom have been on multiple flights.
Over the past year, Blue Origin has launched nine New Shepard missions, six of which carried crew. Joyce said that going to weekly flights would max out capacity at Launch Site One, and that Blue Origin is looking into offering New Shepard flights at a new location. “We are trying to find a partner that is willing to invest,” Aviation Week quoted Joyce as saying.
That site could be outside the U.S., depending in part on what’s convenient for Blue Origin’s customers. “A lot of our target customer base, ultra-high net worth individuals, don’t want to spend a day and a half getting to the destination, so that’s a consideration,” SpaceNews quoted Joyce as saying.
Blue Origin hasn’t disclosed how much its customers are paying to ride New Shepard — but during an auction that was conducted in advance of the first crewed flight in 2021, crypto billionaire Justin Sun bid $28 million for a ticket. Sun finally got his trip to space last month.
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