Blue Origin, promoted by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, successfully launched its New Glenn rocket last Thursday, carrying two NASA spacecraft, bound for Mars, and then landing precisely. This is a feat that has only been achieved so far by Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX. In this way, the conflict between the two poles of space business enters a new phase. A space race, with clear industrial and financial features, in which two of the world’s richest men compete, with the support of major investment and technology groups.
The launch was delayed for several days due to weather conditions on Earth and in space. In fact, the second postponement was driven by “high solar activity,” which worried NASA, as it feared it would affect its spacecraft or cause damage to it. As explained by NASA, the two spacecraft, built by Rocket Lab, will investigate how the constant flow of particles from the Sun, moving at millions of kilometers per hour (known as the solar wind), gradually affects a large part of the Martian atmosphere, in a mission led by the University of Berkeley.
On the rocket’s second flight, Blue Origin was able to recover the propellant for reuse. Before Thursday, SpaceX was the only company that had accomplished a similar maneuver with an orbital rocket. Elon Musk himself congratulated Jeff Bezos and the Blue Origin team, via a message on his social network X.
Blue Origin’s achievement comes amid growing competition between the two private space companies owned by both companies, just as NASA recently opened a bidding for its lunar mission.
New Glenn, named after astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, is a powerful two-stage launch vehicle, manufactured by Blue Origin. The rocket is designed to be reusable, and the first stage, or booster that provides the initial boost at liftoff, is protected so it will last for at least 25 flights, according to the company.
the start The space is one of the main bets of Jeff Bezos, who in the past has gone so far as to say that Blue Origin will one day be bigger than Amazon itself, which currently has a market capitalization of about $2.3 trillion and is one of the most capitalized companies in the world, after Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet.
Until now, Blue Origin is almost entirely funded by Bezos, who, according to some specialized media outlets, spends at least $2 billion a year to keep the company afloat. Some analysts have given start Value ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 million. This is a number that could double by 40 in the next ten years, and reach four billion, above Amazon.
However, Blue Origin’s current numbers are lower than SpaceX’s figures of 400 billion seconds start The world’s most valuable company is behind OpenAI, which has closed various rounds of funding, backed by groups such as Alphabet and Fidelity. The Elon Musk-controlled company has a world-leading position in space launches. In fact, his reusable rockets carry out 85% of launches in the United States, and not a week goes by without the businessman publicly highlighting this on social networks. At Tesla’s recent shareholder meeting, at which his controversial $1 billion payout was approved if he met a series of goals, Musk opened the door to a SpaceX IPO. Additionally, he expects Optimus, Tesla’s robot, and his vehicles to play an “important role” in establishing future bases on the Moon and Mars. “It would be something amazing, a next-generation vehicle on the Moon or Mars,” he told investors.
On the sidelines, and as part of these moves, Amazon renamed its Kuiper business, which seeks to compete with Musk’s Starlink company in satellite communications, to Amazon Leo. The company already has 150 satellites in orbit, and is preparing to accelerate the entry of commercial services, which are not yet operational. The goal is to build a network of more than 3,200 units.
In addition, Amazon Leo has clients such as JetBlue, L3Harris, DIRECTV Latin America, Sky Brasil, or NBN Co. Or the Australian National Broadband Network Operator. Amazon Leo is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, where it conducts primary research and development activities. In addition, it has a satellite production facility in Kirkland, Washington, where it can manufacture up to five satellites per day, and a satellite processing plant at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it prepares and integrates its satellites with rockets from Blue Origin, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance before launch.
In any case, it will not be easy, because he will be competing with a company that is already in a good position. Amazon Leo will compete with Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, which already has nearly 9,000 satellites in orbit and serves more than six million customers around the world. Tesla founder bets millions of dollars by acquiring spectrum for mobile phones in the United States. Thus, SpaceX recently agreed to acquire unallocated AWS-3 licenses from EchoStar for $2.6 billion, thus expanding the agreement the two companies signed in September, which valued the entire deal at $17 billion.
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