Blue Origin pausing space tourism flights for at least 2 years to focus on moon plans
Space • • business
Key Points:
- Blue Origin is pausing its New Shepard suborbital space tourism flights for at least two years to concentrate on developing human lunar capabilities.
- The company aims to support NASA's goal of returning to the moon and establishing a permanent lunar presence, leveraging its Blue Moon lander contract.
- Blue Moon is scheduled for a robotic demonstration mission to the moon later this year, with a crewed landing planned for the Artemis 5 mission in 2029.
- Meanwhile, Artemis 2, the first crewed Artemis mission, may launch as soon as February 8, with Artemis 3 and 4 using SpaceX's Starship for lunar landings.
- New Shepard, which has completed 38 flights including 17 crew