Blue Origin pausing space tourism flights for at least 2 years to focus on moon plans
When you purchase through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle will launch on August 3, 2025, carrying six people into space on mission NS-34. | Credit: Origine Bleue
Blue Origin won’t launch any more space tourism missions for a while.
Jeff Bezos“The aerospace company announced today (January 30) that it is grounding its New Shepard suborbital vehicle for at least two years, so it can focus on sending people much further.
The move allows Blue origin to “shift resources to further accelerate the development of the company’s lunar human capabilities,” the company wrote in a statement. statement today. “The decision reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to the country’s goal of returning to the moon and establish a permanent and sustained lunar presence.
Blue Origin’s lunar ambitions are concrete: the company has a contract to land NASA astronauts on the Moon using its Blue Moon spacecraft. If all goes as planned, Blue Moon will do it for the first time on the Artemis 5 mission, scheduled to launch in 2029.
But Blue Origin could hit gray earth much sooner than that: It plans to launch a scout version of Blue Moon on a robotic demonstration mission to the lunar surface later this year.
Artemis 2the very first crewed mission of the Artemis Programcould launch its flight around the moon as early as February 8. Artemis 3 and Artemis 4, the first crewed Artemis flights to the lunar surface, are expected to use SpaceX’s system. Spacecraft vehicle as a lander.
New Shepard, a reusable rocket-capsule combination, was first launched in April 2015. It now has 38 total flights under its belt, including 17 crewed missions, which together have transported 98 people to and from suborbital space. (Six people flew twice, making a total of 92 different people flew New Shepard.)
New Shepard made its final flight last week, when it sent six people on a mission called NS-38.
Passengers can experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth in the darkness of space during New Shepard’s flights, each of which lasts 10 to 12 minutes. Blue Origin has not revealed ticket prices for the vehicle.
