By Eric M. Johnson
SEATTLE, Feb 8 (Reuters) – Freed from his daily obligationsat Amazon.com Inc, Jeff Bezos is expected to turn upthe heat on his space venture, Blue Origin, as it faces apivotal year and fierce competition from Elon Musk’s SpaceX,industry sources said.
The 57-year-old Bezos, a lifelong space enthusiast and theworld’s second-richest person behind Musk, said last week he isstepping down as chief executive of the e-commerce company as helooks to focus on personal projects.
Blue Origin has fallen far behind SpaceX on orbitaltransportation, and lost out to SpaceX and United LaunchAlliance (ULA) on billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. nationalsecurity launch contracts which begin in 2022. ULA is a jointventure of Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Now, Blue Origin is battling to win a competition withSpaceX and Dynetics to develop a new lunar lander for NASA’spotentially multibillion-dollar push to return humans to themoon in a few years. Dynetics is owned by LeidosHoldings Inc.
Winning the lunar lander contract – and executing itsdevelopment – are seen by Bezos and other executives as vital toBlue Origin establishing itself as a desired partner for NASA,and also putting Blue on the road to turning a profit, thepeople said.
With limited revenue streams, Bezos has been liquidatingabout $1 billion of Amazon stock annually to fund Blue, which hesaid in 2018 was “the most important work that I’m doing.”
A Blue Origin representative declined to comment, butpointed to comments Bezos made last week when he said he wasstepping down as Amazon’s chief executive.
He told Amazon employees he would “stay engaged in importantAmazon initiatives” but also devote time to Blue Origin andvarious philanthropic and media “passions.”
NASA is expected to winnow the lunar lander contest to justtwo companies by the end of April, adding pressure as BlueOrigin works through problems such as wasting millions ofdollars on procurement, and technical and production challenges,the sources said.
One of the development struggles Blue has faced is gettingthe lander light and small enough to fit on a commerciallyavailable rocket, two people briefed on the development said.
Another source, however, said Blue has modified its designsince it was awarded the initial contract last April and thatits current design fits on an additional number of available andforthcoming rockets, including Musk’s Falcon Heavy and ULA’sVulcan.
“He is going to kick Blue Origin into a higher gear,” saidone senior industry source with knowledge of Blue’s operations.
Bezos already has transplanted Amazon’s culture on Blue,down to enforcing similar “leadership principles” and kickingoff meetings by reading documents in silence, sources say.
But one industry veteran said Bezos needs to take ahands-on, operational role if he is going to fix a number ofproblems like bureaucratic processes, missed deadlines, highoverhead and engineer turnover which, according to this source,have emerged as Blue Origin seeks to transition from developmentto production across multiple programs.
One person familiar with the matter said that Bezos has nodesire to immerse himself completely in daily operations, andinstead would prioritize major initiatives and new endeavors.
In his latest Instagram posts, Bezos is seen climbing into acrew capsule wearing cowboy boots, and sitting in his pickuptruck watching a rocket engine test, which he described as a”perfect night!”
BEZOS VERSUS MUSK
Founded in 2000, Blue Origin, based in Kent, Washington, hasexpanded to around 3,500 employees, with sprawling manufacturingand launch facilities in Texas, Florida and Alabama.
Its ambitious portfolio includes selling suborbital touristtrips to space, heavy-lift launch services for satellites, andthe lander – none of which is yet fully commercially viable.
Recent data shows Blue has overcome combustion stabilityproblems on its BE-4 rocket engine – another business line, twosources said. Test engines for ULA’s inaugural Vulcan rocket areexpected to arrive at Florida’s Cape Canaveral this week, withthe first-flight engines and booster coming later this spring,one added.
By comparison, Musk’s SpaceX, founded two years after BlueOrigin, has launched its Falcon 9 boosters more than 100 times,launched the world’s most powerful operational rocket – FalconHeavy – three times, and transported astronauts to theInternational Space Station.
SpaceX said on Thursday it had 10,000 users on its nascentsatellite-based broadband service, dubbed Starlink, which Musksays will provide crucial funding to develop his Starship rocketfor missions to the moon and, eventually, Mars.
Blue is also hoping for a steady stream of revenue for itsheavy-lift New Glenn rocket – potentially set for a debut latethis year – from Amazon’s forthcoming constellation of some3,200 satellites dubbed Project Kuiper, sources say.
Amazon aims to have half the constellation in orbit by 2026,but there is no public timeline for a first launch.
Until now, Bezos has devoted one day a week to Blue Origin,with conference room meetings replaced in recent months by videocalls, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the sources said.
(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in SeattleAdditional reporting by Mike Stone in Washington and JeffreyDastin in San FranciscoEditing by Matthew Lewis)
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