Jeff Bezos' Space Company Begins Test Flights This Year

Blue Origin, the commercial space company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, announced yesterday that it had completed acceptance testing of its BE-3 rocket engine.

The BE-3 is capable of 110,000 pounds of thrust and his powered by liquid hydrogen. Its first use will be as the propulsion system for the companys proposed New Shepard space capsule, which will carry passengers and scientific payloads on suborbital flights into space. As the company moves into its eventual goal of orbital spaceflights, the engine will be used for upper-stage rockets.

The BE3 has now been fired for more than 30,000 seconds over the course of 450 tests, Jeff Bezos said in a statement. We test, learn, refine and then test again to push our engines. The Blue Origin team did an outstanding job exploring the corners of what the BE3 can do and soon well put it to the ultimate test of flight.

Blue Origins BE-3 rocket engine being tested. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Company President Rob Meyerson told reporters yesterday that Blue Origin was going to begin unmanned test flights of the New Shepard capsule later this year, although no date was specified. And unlike other commercial space companies like XCOR Aerospace or Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin has yet to sell any tickets or announce pricing for the cost of a flight on New Shepard.

In addition to the BE-3, Blue Origin is also developing a larger rocket engine, the BE-4, which will be capable of 550,000 pounds of thrust and fueled by a mixture of liquid oxygen and liquid natural gas. Last September, the company announced a partnership with the Boeing Boeing-Lockheed Martin Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance to develop the engine for use in ULAs next generation of launch vehicles.

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Jeff Bezos' Space Company Begins Test Flights This Year