Blue Origin’s next generation ‘Orbital Reef’ station is the future of the commercial space race

In the billionaire space race, SpaceX seems to be taking up much of the limelight thanks to its owner Elon Musk.

However, rival Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is quietly working away at big plans.

Last year, the company launched its first human flight with Bezos on it. For now, space travel looks like it’s only made for the rich but Blue Origin’s Senior Director for Emerging Markets, Erika Wagner, believes that could change.

‘The cost of space access has been coming down reliably for decades. We’re seeing innovations in rocket reusability that are really changing the game,’ Wagner told Metro.co.uk.

She describes space travel so far as being similar to flying from London to Dubai and throwing away your aeroplane.

‘We’ve been doing that with rockets for decades,’

If successfully reusing rockets could be the key to making space travel affordable, Blue Origin is something of a pioneer in that. 

The company’s New Shepard was the first reusable rocket to successfully make a soft landing, beating out SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster by several weeks. 

‘The New Shepard rocket had its first flight in 2015 and became the first rocket to go up to space, come back down and be reused,’ said Wagner.

The same principle is being applied to Blue Origin’s newer rocket, the New Glenn. 

‘It will be a very large, Saturn V class rocket that will go and deliver large payloads to Earth orbit and to the moon and beyond,’

For now, the company is looking at the first stage of the rocket being reused but eventually wants to ‘reuse the whole rocket’.

‘The world is getting to think this normal now. My children were launching model rockets and they ran out to the field and brought it back and asked me for another motor because rockets fly again, right? This is becoming a thing that even school kids understand,’ she said.

The last time Blue Origin made headlines it was because one of their rockets burst into flames, minutes after launch in September. That was a New Shepard rocket as well.

The mission, called NS-23, was the first New Shepard launch without humans aboard in over a year and the fourth mission in 2022.

Wagner explained how the NS-23 mission was a payload mission which was carrying science experiments and not people. The capsule itself managed to escape from the rocket.

‘So, the capsule came and landed back safely at the lunch site. We were able to recover the payloads from the capsule and give them back to our customers,’ said Wagner.

After the incident, Blue Origin’s fleet of New Shepard rockets was grounded until the FAA signed off on an internal investigation. Wagner tells us the company is ‘in the process of that with the FAA right now’. 

‘We always want to make sure we fully understand all of our anomalies before we get back to flight. So, we’re in the process of doing that and as soon as we’re ready to fly safely again, we will,’ said Wagner.

So, we won’t be seeing any Blue Origin rockets go up until they get the all-clear from the FAA. 

Space station

However, beyond launching rockets, Blue Origin has its sights set on a bigger project — it’s Orbital Reef space station.

With Nasa’s Internation Space Station (ISS) coming to the end of its life in 2030, the US has awarded $415.6 million to private companies to develop privately-owned and operated commercial space stations and Blue Origin is one of them.

Last year, Nasa awarded $130 million to Blue Origin for its Orbital Reef space station, in partnership with Sierra Space and Boeing. 

‘If we’re going to go to the moon and Mars, we’re going to continue to need low-earth orbit. It’s the closest to home and the most affordable place for us to get to for training astronauts, for doing medical research and advancing technologies,’ said Wagner.

Orbital Reef is also set to go beyond research purposes to house more commercial and consumer applications. 

‘So you could imagine a space hotel or a space movie studio or other things that bring you and me into space,’ said Wagner.

While that sounds too sci-fi to be true, it could be happening much sooner than we think. Wagner explained that Orbital Reef needs to be up ahead of the 2030 expiry date of the ISS. 

‘Nasa has said it wants to do a two-year transition. So, Orbital Reef will be up by the end of the decade,’

So, working and playing in space is not a far-fetched dream after all. Orbital Reef could also be vital to Nasa’s Artemis Program that’s set to return humans to the moon by 2024 to set up a sustained human presence there.

‘Now we’re building the technologies and economics that make it make sense for us to go back, not just to put footprints and flags but this time to stay,’ said Wagner of the 50–year wait to go back to the moon.

‘The computers that powered Apollo to the moon…your phone is more powerful than that.’

A bigger picture

Wagner talks about ‘lunar permanence’ where humanity is bringing the moon into our embrace as part of who we are and what we do. 

‘I think we’re finally at that point with reusable rocketry and high-powered computing that’s bringing down the cost of the technology and increasing the economic benefits of the data that’s coming back to be able to go this time to stay.

This ties into Blue Origin’s goals for space tourism but Wagner tells us of the bigger picture.

‘We have the vision of a future where there are millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of the earth. It’s not just about going to go or using space as an escape hatch,’ she said.

‘Space is for the benefit of all of us. So we are really invested in the infrastructure. We are building the road to space so that everyone can drive on it,’

So we’re talking settlements on the moon and mars?

‘Settlements are certainly a possibility. The Artemis program will have missions to the moon. So how do we go from missions to communities? I think that’s a really interesting question,’ said Wagner.

Last year, Nasa awarded a sole contract to SpaceX for $2.9 billion to take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon. It beat Blue Origin and defence contractor Dynetics which had both submitted proposals for the lunar lander contract.

While this was a blow for Blue Origin, Wagner says they’re continuing to invest in their lunar capabilities. 

‘There’s now Nasa’s Sustaining Lunar Development contract that’s coming up. We’re looking forward to going back to the moon at this time to stay,’

As of September, Nasa was seeking proposals for the development of a lunar lander for missions beyond Artemis III and Blue Origin seems to be gunning for that contract. 

Blue Origin’s rivalry with SpaceX is hard to ignore but Wagner tells us about Bezos’ philosophy where ‘there are two kinds of companies: conquerors and explorers’.

‘Conquerors are always looking at what the other companies are doing and explorers are always looking at the horizon. We are focused on the horizon. We’re trying to figure out what is it that the market needs and what the planet needs,’ said Wagner.

So what does Blue Origin think the market and the planet needs? 

‘We’re focused on thinking about space for the benefit of earth, keeping in mind three things. The first is that we have to get radical reductions in the cost of launch and affordable, reliable access to space,’

‘Once you have affordable, reliable access to space, then you figure out how to leverage space. How do we use the resources of space whether it’s energy or minerals or other things that are out there to serve our planet?’

‘The third thing is with space being such a long-term venture, we have to inspire the next generation. We need to do workforce development and inspire because these are not things that happen in my lifetime or yours. These are things that take generations,’

Wagner alludes to the overview effect, a cognitive shift reported by some astronauts while viewing the Earth from space.

‘They have a much different sense of the fragility of our planet, the importance of connecting with humanity and the fact that there are no borders from space,’ 

The question is when will we get to the point where our kids or even us can afford to go to space to experience this?

‘I don’t know but I certainly am excited about having an opportunity to go to space someday,’ said Wagner.

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