Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, is looking for a site to build an international launch facility to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The CEO of Blue Origin, Bob Smith, said in an interview with the Financial Times that the company is also looking for new associations and acquisitions in Europe and beyond to accelerate the expansion of its spatial services, such as the launch business. .
“Estamos buscando cualquier cosa que podamos hacer para acquiror y expandirnos para servir mejor a nuestros clientes”, said Smith. “Nothing es una funcción de escala, es cuánto aceleramos nuestra hoja de ruta de lo que estamos tratando de logar”
Sin embargo, the search for a new launch site was still at an early stage and, according to Smith, no site had been chosen.
His comments represent a more assertive position in the company that Bezos founded in 2000. Space ya ha levado a cabo varios lanzamintos excitosos. manned and unmanned missions at the International Space Station.
Analysts said that more acquisitions and associations together with another launch site, in addition to its facilities in Texas and Florida, could be a way for Blue Origin to enter the DIA.
The incursions of Blue Origin in Europe could also help him to obtain new talents in a moment of fierce competition for skills, said Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space.
“Europe is known for having a list of professionals in space and it could be a form of growth,” said Henry.
Henry Aggrego que las aquisiciones también se caracteríaron por una “mentalidad diferente”. El año pasado, Blue Origin compró Honeybee Robotics, una empresa de sistemas de robotica espacial. Want to expand and work more with partners. Para hacer esto, necesitan habilidades fuera de blue origin”, dijo Henry.
The head of Blue Origin, who arrived from Honeywell Aerospace in 2017, has aggressively expanded the company during the last five years with the objective of transforming it “from a research organization to a company”. espacio, la empresa leadera un consorcio para construir una estación espacial comercial. Last month, NASA awarded a $3.4 million contract to build a lunar landing module to take humans to the lunar surface.
In a separate interview at the Space Investment Summit of the Financial Times last month, Smith said that the company, financed by Bezos with at least a billion dollars a year, paid off.
But he admitted that now he has to find ways to accelerate the progress of the implementation to satisfy the demand of the clients. The constellation of wide-band satellites of Amazon, Project Kuiper, has selected the new orbital rocket de carga pesada New Glenn of blue origin for no less than 12 launches in five years. The rocket is expected to make its first flight in 2024, after several years of delays.
“Tenemos que tragarnos esto y poder volar y volar bien”, dijo Smith. “Nuestro reto será cómo gomesos el ritmo [of production and launch] más alto.
Blue Home is looking for acquisitions and associations in many areas, from manufacturing to software. También wants to expand its services in new regions like Europe. “I think there’s a great opportunity in Europe,” said Smith. “Nos queda menos claro como se venden los Sericios espaciales en Europa que en Estados Unidos”
The tendency of the blue origin to move rapidly while SpaceX prepares to fly its giant rocket, Starship, for the second time. The first launch in April ended in a crash when the vehicle exploded after four minutes of flight. But when Starship enters service, it is expected that its capacity of 100 tons will exert a strong pressure on launch prices.
Smith said he was not worried about New Glenn’s ability to compete with Starship. “Tenemos un buen historico de Pedidos et Podemos Segier Ampliandolo”, Dijo.
Blue Origin also generated revenue from the suborbital launcher New Shepard, which carried out 23 missions and carried 31 people across the Kármán Line from the limit of space.
With the suspension, this launch platform was retired after a mission without crew fell last September. Se espera que Addis Erdi vuelva a volar sin crewación en las proximate semanas. Se espera que los vuelos crewidados SE realicen unas seis semanas después de un vuelo successful de drones, dijo Smith.
