/sci/ - Science & Math

https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-within-a-few-weeks-of-resuming-new-shepard-flights/

> Smith was less forthcoming about the schedule for the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn orbital launch vehicle, which was once projected to fly in 2020.

>“If you want to know what the launch date is for New Glenn, I can give you one but it’s going to be wrong,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s going to arrive early or arrive late.”

> He said the company has flight hardware for the vehicle coming together, as well as preparations of its launch pad at Cape Canaveral. The vehicle’s BE-4 engines are one of the larger “pacing items” for the launch, he noted.

> Smith described Blue Origin as a company that shifted upon his arrival as CEO in 2017 from a research and development mindset to a more commercial focus with several lines of business. That includes New Shepard and New Glenn, as well as the BE-4 engines it produces both for New Glenn and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur. The company also won a $3.4 billion NASA award May 19 to develop a second lunar lander for the Artemis lunar exploration campaign and is partnered with Sierra Space and other companies on the Orbital Reef commercial space station project.

> As for a timeline for profitability for Blue Origin, said, Smith, “it goes back to how much Jeff wants to invest.”