Blue Origin

It's been over 50 years since any human set foot on the moon, but NASA has plans to change that. The agency's Artemis program aims to send humans to explore the moon's south pole in the next few years, using a brand new rocket and capsule system. But the path to achieving this ambitious goal hasn't been smooth. Despite an announcement in 2019 that people would be back on the moon within five years, the reality has turned out to be rather slower and more complex. So here's why you might have to wait a while longer before any of us see people back on our planet's favorite satellite.

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While the International Space Station is the destination for conducting research in low-Earth orbit, it will not be that way forever. The United States and NASA, along with partners worldwide who are already helping to maintain the ISS, will continue to fund the space station for a few more years, but eventually, it will have to be replaced. NASA has now named three companies selected to submit designs for new space stations, and there are some familiar names on the list.

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Blue Origin announced today that it has plans to build its own space station. Teaming with Sierra Space and backed by various companies and organizations, including Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and Arizona State University, Orbital Reef is described as a "'mixed use business park' in space," according to Blue Origin's announcement today.

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Star Trek actor William Shatner is now the world's oldest man to go to space, courtesy of Blue Origin. Amazon creator Jeff Bezos (owner of Blue Origin) was present to greet the crew of this flight as they landed back in the Texas desert on October 13, 2021.

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Blue Origin has confirmed the final crew-members for the upcoming NS-18 launch, with Star Trek actor William Shatner set to occupy one of the last two seats in the spacecraft. Shatner will join Blue Origin's own Audrey Powers on NS-18, which is expected to launch later this month.

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Blue Origin has revealed details of its next launch, including four of the astronauts who will be aboard New Shepard's 18th mission when it blasts off in October. NS-18 will be the first mission for Jeff Bezos' company since it carried him on Blue Origin's first human flight, back on July 20.

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NASA's Artemis lander concept process reached a point where 5 companies were awarded further millions to mature sustainable human landing system concepts. The awards will be given under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-2) Appendix N broad agency announcement, and represent a combined total of $146 million USD for work over the next 15 months.

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The latest Blue Origin launch took place this morning at approximately 9:35 AM (EDT) with a live broadcast that is now available to watch in replay mode. This launch was made into suborbital space as the 17th flight of the Blue Origin New Shepard craft. Onboard were 11 NASA-sponsored experiments included in a total of 18 commercial payloads.

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There are significant amounts of money to be made in the commercial spaceflight program with NASA. With significant amounts of money to be made, multiple companies compete to land contracts with NASA for various missions and to place payloads into space. SpaceX seems to be the darling of NASA right now, winning more contracts and handling more missions than other competing companies. Recently, SpaceX was given the contract worth billions of dollars to place a lunar lander on the moon's surface.

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Blue Origin may be embroiled in a contentious legal battle with NASA over the Artemis lunar lander contract, but that's not stopping Jeff Bezos' rocket company from scheduling its next launch. August 25 will see New Shepard blast off early in the morning for its 17th mission, and there'll be NASA Moon tech clinging to the outside of the booster on the way.

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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has published its response to Blue Origin's and Dynetics' protests over the lunar lander contract granted by NASA to competitor SpaceX. The protests were filed in late April, resulting in NASA temporarily pausing the lunar lander contract given to SpaceX while the GAO resolved the two formal protests.

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Jeff Bezos, the founder of private space company Blue Origin, has penned an open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson that talks about a recent controversy involving the agency and SpaceX while offering a new proposal: it'll cover up to $2 billion to get back into the Artemis program. As well, the company is offering to take on the burden of significant costs above the $2 billion figure.

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