CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Monday’s early-morning moon-bound launch was a much-needed win for the private space company that makes the Vulcan rocket engines.
Blue Origin has invested hundreds of millions of dollars on the Space Coast and billions of dollars overall into its commercial space program.
The company is backed by one of the richest people in the world: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
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News 6 Anchor Erik von Ancken interviewed Bezos in 2015 when he announced he would build his heavy-lift rocket – the New Glenn – at Kennedy Space Center’s Exploration Park and launch it from Space Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Blue Origin’s blue-painted, ever-expanding 750,000 square-foot factory is also where it tests the BE-4 engine. Two BE-4s flawlessly pushed the Vulcan rocket into space early Monday morning.
Vulcan’s payload was an Astrobotic-made lunar lander. NASA contracted with Astrobotic to place the lander on the surface of the moon and perform five experiments for $108 million to prepare for the Artemis astronaut moon landings.
In the hours after launch, Astrobotic posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, the lander had experienced an “anomaly” in its propulsion system due to a loss of propellant.
Even if the lander – safely delivered to a trans-lunar injection orbit by the upper stage of the Vulcan rocket – fails, the launch of the new vehicle and new engines was a resounding success.
And it was the perhaps the loudest message since 2015 from Blue Origin, a company that rarely says anything.
The last time the commercial space company’s founder spoke loudly about Blue Origin at the Kennedy Space Center was in 2015.
“And what is going to lift off from launch pad 36, I want to give you a little sneak peak,” Bezos told a crowd of reporters, NASA brass and lawmakers as he played a video unveiling New Glenn. “Here it is... the new orbital vehicle!”
News 6 asked Bezos what it meant to him to bring Blue Origin to Florida.
“I have some roots here in Florida, I went to high school in Miami. My dad is a Cuban immigrant, we have some ties to Florida, it’s a great state,” Bezos said in 2015.
At the time Bezos promised he’d use his Amazon fortune to fund Blue Origin to fly the New Glenn from the Space Coast before the end of the decade.
Eight years later, New Glenn still isn’t ready to fly.
Blue Origin is making steady progress, however, posting a picture on Instagram of the heavy lift rocket late last year with the caption “hardware is stacking up in Florida.”
Shortly after, Bezos fired his longtime Blue Origin CEO, replaced him with an Amazon executive and admitted in a podcast for the first time publicly Blue Origin needs to move faster.
Vulcan development was delayed for years in part because Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines weren’t ready. As of 2:18 am Monday, engine development is now one less hurdle Blue Origin must clear to fly New Glenn.
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