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Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos announced that the company will be a new player joining the scene at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos announced that the company will be a new player joining the scene at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Blue Origin will take over the launch pad Launch Complex 36, a historical site on the Florida Space Coast, witness to 145 launches, including that of Pioneer 10 and Mariner missions.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of Blue Origin stated in his announcement regarding the takeover of Launch Complex 36:
“the pad has stood silent for more than 10 years – too long. We can’t wait to fix that”.
Blue Origin has already completed the test flight of the New Shepard spacecraft in April. It was reported that during the test flight reached Mach 3 at the altitude of 307,000 feet. The company, based in Kent, Washington aspires to ferry space tourists in the future visits that would allow people to witness live the astonishing images currently reserved for astronauts and experience for themselves zero-gravity conditions.
The launching event taking place in Cape Canaveral saw the release of some images depicting how the orbital launch vehicle will look like. No further details were revealed, but Jeff Bezos assured everyone present that more specifications will follow come next year. Concluding his remarks, the billionaire owner of Blue Origin expressed his ambitions and expectations:
“The thing I’m most excited about is humans in space, and the vision for me is millions of people living and working in space”.
Blue Origin is a valid candidate for bidding, alongside SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Boeing, for NASA and even Pentagon contracts and make a force entry in commercial flights to space. As the U.S. space agency sees Cape Canaveral as a ‘multi-user spaceport’, Blue Origin is more than welcome to join the growing scene.
Currently, SpaceX is operating Launch Complex 39A, while Boeing has taken over a shuttle facility where it’s developing the CST-100 Starliner space capsule.
If everything goes according to plan, the space industry will only grow stronger and more capable. And NASA is doing all it can to prop the efforts by contracting commercial missions.
Photo Credits: makeuseof.com
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