Blue Origin stops space tourism missions to shift attention to lunar plan.
Blue Origin has announced that it will stop flights of its New Shepard suborbital system and reallocate resources towards the further development of its human lunar capabilities. The choice is consistent with the company’s long-term goal of assisting the US in its endeavours to return to the Moon and create a permanent lunar presence.
With 38 completed missions to date, New Shepard the first fully reusable spaceflight vehicle to land vertically has transported 98 passengers past the Kármán queue. The system has also launched more than 200 scientific and research payloads on behalf of students, academic institutions, research groups, and NASA.
The corporation added that New Shepard’s operational track record and customer demand have resulted to a multi-year backlog. The delay in flights is designed to enable Blue Origin to focus engineering resources and investment on future human spaceflight programs, including those connected to lunar exploration.
Blue Origin’s broader lunar focus is supported by a $3.6 billion deal with NASA, which is paying the development of Blue Moon, the company’s lunar lander. Together with a different lander that SpaceX is developing, the vehicle is anticipated to contribute to the return of American astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade.
