Bezos’ Blue Origin Suffering Spectacular Failure in Building New Rocket | Blue Origin | Bezos

Bloomberg— Blue Origin LLC experienced failures in your tests in recent weeks, including an incident at a plant that damaged part of the future Glenn’s New Rocketthe long-awaited centerpiece of this company’s project, driven by Jeff Bezos compete with SpaceX.

The top of the rocket collapsed on itself, partly due to a worker’s error while moving it into a storage hangar, according to people familiar with the situation.

In a separate incident Another upper part of the rocket failed during testing due to stress and exploded, the sources said. Repair work is ongoing, another person said, noting that no one was hurt in either incident.

Read more: Hiring boom at SpaceX and Blue Origin makes it harder for NASA to attract talent

The incidents, which have not been reported until now, are an example of the challenges Blue Origin faces as it ramps up production of New Glenn, which has already been delayed by four years.

At the same time, the new CEO Dave Limhas hired several executives to reverse a research and development slump that has plagued the company for years.

Blue Origin is rushing to meet strict deadline for the presentation of the rocket in October for the mission Escape from NASA.

The New Glenn launch date is set for about two months from now, because that’s when Mars will be close enough to Earth that the planets won’t be that close for another two years after October.

It’s unclear whether the recent incidents will impact the release schedule.

Two failures affected the hardware The second and third flights of the New Glenn rocket are planned after the October debut, a Blue Origin spokesman said. is preparing to launch New Glenn this year and that he is making every effort to achieve this.

The company is producing a lot of hardware for upcoming flights, the spokesman said, adding that Blue Origin is constantly testing its future hardware.

New Glenn is designed carry satellites, and, eventually, humans into Earth orbit. It’s important for Blue Origin to challenge SpaceX, so Elon Musk, and the United Launch Alliance, including Boeing (BA) and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT), for lucrative U.S. national security missions.

It is also critical to eliminate the backlog of commercial launches for satellite operators, including Amazon’s Kuiper Project, an initiative to expand global broadband access.

But first, the company is preparing to launch Escapade, NASA’s ambitious first mission that will send twin spacecraft to Mars to study the planet’s magnetic field.

Two spacecraft built by Rocket Lab in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, were recently completed and shipped to Florida for launch.

Read more: Bezos’ Blue Origin heads to space after long-awaited return

But the window in which Earth and Mars are closest to each other in their orbits around the sun closes this fall, and some at the company are wondering whether the deadline can be met even if they work around the clock.

All flight equipment is complete and the company works on engine assembly and integrationThis was reported by a representative of Blue Origin.

Even the most successful companies often encounter setbacks when trying to launch new rockets. Bezos, the second-richest person in the world and the founder of Amazon, has been trying to get Blue Origin into orbit for years.

Founded in 2000About a year before Musk’s now dominant SpaceX, Bezos funded rocket and engine factories, opened launch sites in Texas and Florida, and hired people. led to their The number of personnel will exceed 10,000 people.

“A lot of the problems in rocketry were solved in the ’60s,” Bezos said. Every day astronaut (Everyday Astronauts) during a visit to the New Glen facility on May 30. “What hasn’t been decided yet is how to make it cheap. “It has to do with reuse, manufacturing techniques and other things.”

Blue origin dealt with delays in development, a sluggish corporate culture and explosive failures, including recent episodes at a Florida missile plant reported by Bloomberg.

In the first recent incident, plant workers moved a huge section of New Glenn, destined for the rocket’s second flight, from humid Florida to an air-conditioned storage hangar.

But They didn’t control the material properly. They had no pressure relief valves and they cooled to the point where they crushed like a crushed Coke can.

In the second incident, a portion of the rocket intended for New Glenn’s third flight failed during stress tests and exploded in the building it was in.

Many employees are working hard to meet Escapade’s deadline, with staff being recruited from other divisions to help New Glenn teams reach the launch window, one of the sources said.

As part of an effort to revitalize Blue Origin, Bezos in December handed the top job to Limp, an Amazon veteran known for his speed of execution and solving customer problems.

Limp quickly shook up the company, prioritizing key projects: The New Glenn, the BE-4 Engine That Powers Him, and a Moon Landing for NASAThe CEO also brought in leaders from supply chain, finance and human resources.

Read more: Boeing’s new CEO faces tough decisions after NASA dumps SpaceX

The limping isn’t over: As of August 21, the company’s website listed openings for a vice president of business operations and program management and a vice president of manufacturing automation, suggesting Blue Origin is thinking about getting me into space more often.

The CEO didn’t have to start from scratch.

Shortly after Blue Origin launched has finally resumed flights on its space tourism rocketIn June, the Defense Department selected a company to compete for contracts worth up to $5.6 billion to launch future national security satellites into orbit. Blue Origin has announced a series of launches worth $10 billion.

Additionally, in recent months, Blue Origin has been able to overcome previous hurdles and increase production and delivery of its BE-4 engine, which also powers new Vulcan rocket from United Launch Alliance.

“I feel a lot better about BE-4,” he said. Tory BrunoULA CEO, in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “Their plant is up and running and making engines. I feel much more comfortable now.”

Bezos has said Blue Origin is “the most important work I do.” The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates that in 2021, doubled the amount of money he was pouring in annually in the company up to 2,000 million US dollars.

“Our goal today is not to do better than they did in spaceflight,” Bezos said during a May 30 visit to the plant, referring to space travel of the past. “This makes it more accessible.”

–With the cooperation of Matt Day.

For more details, visit Bloomberg.com.