Virgin Galactic easily accomplished its sixth human spaceflight in six months on Thursday, persevering with a powerful cadence of missions with its VSS Unity spacecraft. This efficiency has made the corporate the clear chief in suborbital area tourism.

A key query is the place this leaves the opposite firm with a launch system able to carrying non-public astronauts above the environment: Blue Origin. That firm’s New Shepard rocket and spacecraft have been grounded since an engine failure almost 14 months in the past. Throughout that uncrewed flight, the rocket broke aside, however the capsule safely parachuted to the West Texas desert.

Blue Origin completed its accident evaluation this spring and applied a repair to the problem, together with design modifications to the BE-3 engine combustion chamber. In Might, the corporate stated it deliberate to return to flight “quickly.” Then, in September, the Federal Aviation Administration closed its mishap investigation. So the place is New Shepard?

The corporate initially focused an uncrewed return-to-flight mission in early October, two sources instructed Ars. This flight was to hold the scientific experiments on board the ill-fated New Shepard-23 to present them a second alternative to attempt to attain area and endure microgravity circumstances. Assuming all went properly, a crewed mission was to comply with in February 2024.

Nonetheless, October has come and gone. Requested when New Shepard will launch, a Blue Origin spokesperson instructed Ars, “We’re making ready for flight and plan to return later this 12 months.”

That’s in step with what some members of the Blue Origin workforce are actually working towards. The newest delay, in response to a supply on the firm, was brought on by a problem with certifying an engine half meant for flight.

It’s too robust to characterize the New Shepard rocket and spacecraft as an arrogance program for Blue Origin and its founder, Jeff Bezos. In any case, the corporate has discovered some priceless classes about vertical touchdown and rocket reuse that it’s going to apply to the a lot bigger New Glenn rocket. Nonetheless, after New Shepard gave Bezos his much-desired experience to area in 2021, it is value considering the aim of this system going ahead.

Does New Shepard have a future?

Of Blue Origin’s roughly 11,000 staff, about 400 individuals spend half or all of their time engaged on New Shepard. That may be a small fraction of the corporate’s total workforce, however factoring in salaries, advantages, and programmatic bills, an affordable estimate is that New Shepard prices Blue Origin about $100 million a 12 months to keep up and function.

Previous to the accident, this system averaged a flight roughly each eight to 10 weeks. Even doubling that cadence, it is extremely unlikely that New Shepard would come near being revenue-neutral. As one particular person acquainted with the corporate’s funds instructed Ars, “It is positively a cash loser. At all times has been.” One other particular person instructed Ars that New Shepard is “hemorrhaging” cash.

New Shepard is only one of many strains of enterprise being pursued by Blue Origin. There’s competitors throughout the firm for assets to construct engines, massive rockets, lunar landers, and even an area station. At Virgin Galactic, there may be solely suborbital area tourism. In different phrases, Blue Origin may finish New Shepard and nonetheless be a significant area firm. At Virgin, it is the entire enchilada.

In December, a brand new chief govt will take the reins at Blue Origin, an Amazon veteran named Dave Limp, who has Bezos’ belief. When he was employed, Bezos gave Limp a transparent mandate: transfer quicker. Specifically, Bezos desires Blue Origin to ship on the big New Glenn rocket and lunar lander for the Artemis Program. One strategy to reduce prices and transfer quicker could be to take the proficient and skilled engineers on New Shepard and allocate them to the rocket and lander applications.

It is unimaginable to know what’s in Bezos’ thoughts, after all. In the end, it will likely be his determination about whether or not New Shepard continues to fly. This system, which is managed in Washington state and flown out of West Texas, will final so long as he cares to subsidize it. However it’s maybe notable that Bezos simply introduced he’s shifting from Washington to Miami. Florida has no capital features taxes (which is necessary whenever you’re promoting Amazon inventory to fund Blue Origin on the common), his dad and mom are there, and his accomplice Lauren Sanchez loves the seashore.

Miami can also be nearer to Cape Canaveral, the place the motion is for Blue Origin’s rocket and lunar lander actions. “Blue Origin’s operations are more and more shifting to Cape Canaveral,” Bezos wrote on Instagram.

And it’s fairly removed from West Texas.