Blue Origin to pause space tourism for 2 years, focus on lunar human flight programme

New Delhi: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has announced plans to pause space tourism and instead will focus on landing humans on the Moon.

In a blogpost, Blue Origin shared that it will be retiring its New Shepard — the first reusable spaceflight system to vertically land — for at least two years.

The company said it will “shift resources to further accelerate development of the company’s human lunar capabilities”.

“The decision reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to the nation’s goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence,” the post added.

Since 2021, New Shepard has provided flight to suborbital space, lasting 11 minutes above the Karman line — the internationally recognised boundary of space.

The US-based company has, to date, flown 38 times and carried 98 humans above the Kármán line. The last flight took place a week ago.

The suborbital vehicle has also launched more than 200 scientific and research payloads from students, academia, research organisations, and NASA.

“This consistent and reliable performance, combined with an exceptional customer experience, has resulted in a multi-year customer backlog,” the company said.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin holds a $3.4 billion contract with NASA to develop its Blue Moon lander, designed to ferry NASA astronauts to and fro from the Moon.

Blue Moon is expected to launch the Artemis 5 mission, targeted to launch in 2029.

The company also plans to launch a pathfinder version of Blue Moon, designated as the Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1-SN001), on a robotic demonstration mission to the lunar surface later this year.

Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) is a single-launch, lunar cargo lander that remains on the surface and provides safe, reliable, and affordable access to the lunar environment. MK1 will provide cargo transport, leveraging the 7-metre fairing of the New Glenn launch vehicle, to deliver up to three metric tons anywhere on the lunar surface.

Earlier this month, the company also announced plans to build a satellite communication network called TeraWave to deliver connectivity to data centers, governments, and businesses.

Blue Origin said it will begin deploying the network in the fourth quarter of 2027.

IANS