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Tag: Blue Origin

  • The Billionaire Space Race Is Really Heating Up

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    As the U.S. races China to the Moon, two billionaires are locked in a space race of their own. NASA has offered both Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin a chance to return astronauts to the lunar surface, and the competition just got interesting.

    A bombshell report by Ars Technica’s Eric Berger has revealed exactly how Blue Origin plans to beat SpaceX to a crewed Moon landing. Internal documents obtained by Ars reportedly detail the accelerated mission architecture Blue Origin will use to attempt to land astronauts on the Moon without the highly complex orbital refueling SpaceX’s approach requires.

    Gizmodo could not independently verify the contents of the documents Ars reviewed, and Blue Origin did not respond to a request for comment.

    The rivalry ramps up

    Before we dive into Blue Origin’s new lunar strategy, a bit of context. On Sunday, Musk sent shockwaves through the spaceflight community by announcing that SpaceX—a company built on its founder’s dream of colonizing Mars—has pivoted toward building a Moon city instead.

    The move marks a seismic shift in the company’s strategic vision. After all, it was only a year ago that Musk called the Moon a “distraction,” insisting that SpaceX is “going straight to Mars.” Still, it’s not altogether surprising, as Musk’s company is currently at risk of losing its Artemis 3 lunar lander contract to Blue Origin.

    The morning after Musk announced SpaceX’s Moon pivot, Bezos posted an ominous photo of a turtle peering out from the shadows (this is relevant—promise). As Berger insightfully points out, the image—unccompanied by text—is almost certainly a nod to Blue Origin’s mascot: a tortoise. Bezos has previously explained that the tortoise is a reference to “The Tortoise and the Hare,” one of Aesop’s Fables.

    It appears that in his eyes, Blue is the tortoise that will beat SpaceX—the hare—to a crewed lunar landing through slow and steady development.

    NASA’s Artemis 3 mission will be the first to return humans to the Moon since the Apollo era. In 2021, the agency contracted SpaceX to build a crew lander for the mission, called the Starship Human Landing System (HLS). NASA originally hoped the lander would be ready in time to launch Artemis 3 by 2024, but significant developmental delays pushed the mission back to 2028 and prompted the agency to reopen the contract in October.

    Since then, Blue has emerged as SpaceX’s competitor for the Artemis 3 lander contract. Bezos’s company is actively prepping its Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) cargo lander for its first test flight, slated to launch this year. Its success would pave the way for the MK2 crew lander, and if that vehicle is ready to fly before the Starship HLS, Musk can kiss his Artemis 3 contract goodbye.

    Blue Origin’s new plan

    Here’s how Blue Origin plans to pull this off. The documents reviewed by Ars reportedly detail two missions: an uncrewed demo mission and a crewed demo landing.

    Berger reports that the uncrewed flight will require three launches of Blue’s New Glenn rocket. The first two will put two “transfer stages” (specialized upper stages designed to move a vehicle from one orbit to another) into low-Earth orbit, and the third will put a smaller version of the MK2 lander, called “Blue Moon MK2-IL,” into orbit. These three vehicles will dock to each other and the first transfer stage will boost them into an elliptical orbit around Earth.

    The first stage will then separate and fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere. That’s when the second transfer stage will take over, boosting the MK2-IL lander into an elliptical orbit around the Moon. The lander will then separate, descend to the lunar surface, and ascend back into low-lunar orbit.

    The crewed landing will require four New Glenn launches, three to put three transfer stages into LEO and a fourth to launch MK2-IL and a docking port. All four vehicles will dock to the port. The first transfer stage will boost the stack into an elliptical Earth orbit, and the second will push it to rendezvous with NASA’s Orion spacecraft—carrying a crew of astronauts—in a specialized, highly stable orbit around the Moon.

    Orion will dock with MK2-IL to allow the crew to board. The third transfer stage will then move MK2-IL into a low-lunar orbit and separate, allowing the lander to descend to the lunar surface and then ascend to re-rendezvous with Orion.

    Sounds easy enough, right? Not quite. While this approach will not require orbital refueling, Blue Origin still must prove it can pull off complex dockings and deep-space maneuvers it has never attempted before, as Berger notes. So while Blue Origin is aiming for an uncrewed Moon landing later this year—potentially ahead of SpaceX’s 2027 target—both companies remain far from the finish line.

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • What’s the Difference Between SpaceX’s Starlink, Amazon Leo, and Blue Origin’s TeraWave?

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    The satellite internet race is ramping up. In the years since SpaceX launched its first batch of Starlinks back in 2019, numerous competitors have entered the market, including two you’ve almost definitely heard about lately: Amazon Leo and Blue Origin’s newly announced TeraWave.

    Starlink, Amazon Leo, and TeraWave are far from the only players in this rapidly growing industry, but they stand out because of their massive financial backings and the ambitious strategic visions of their respective billionaire owners. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk oversees Starlink, while Jeff Bezos—through Amazon and Blue Origin—is developing Amazon Leo and TeraWave.

    Each of these brands has taken a unique approach to building the next generation of satellite internet technology. Understanding the differences between them is key to grasping how the future of global connectivity may unfold. So, without further ado, let’s dive in.

    Vastly different scales of deployment

    The first thing to understand is that these networks came on the scene at different times, and their parent companies have chosen different deployment strategies. As a result, they are in various stages of development.

    Starlink is by far the most mature of the three. SpaceX was first to market with its satellite project, announcing it in 2015. Since the start of deployment in 2019, the company has rapidly built up the Starlink megaconstellation through hundreds of launches aboard its Falcon 9 rocket, with 9,555 Starlinks currently active and providing broadband internet to millions worldwide.

    Amazon unveiled plans to develop a competitor—called Project Kuiper at the time—about one month before SpaceX launched its first batch of operational Starlinks, “but was much slower to really ramp up and start production,” Kevin Bell, senior vice president of the Engineering and Technology Group (ETG) at The Aerospace Corporation, told Gizmodo. “Some of that was satellite driven, some of that was rocket driven,” Bell explained.

    While SpaceX’s approach to Starlink development prioritized rapid iteration and deployment, Amazon took its time finalizing the design of its satellites and conducted more extensive prototype testing. Because Amazon does not have its own rockets to support satellite deployment, it partners with launch providers—including SpaceX—to build its constellation.

    The company launched its first operational batch of satellites aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket in April 2025. The next launch, set for February 12, will bring the constellation (now called Amazon Leo) up to 212 satellites. Because it is still in the early days of scaling, the service has not yet launched commercially.

    Then there’s TeraWave, the newcomer. Blue Origin announced the project on January 21, setting a goal to begin deployment by the first quarter of 2027. The company will presumably use its New Glenn rocket to launch its satellites, but that has not yet been confirmed. According to the announcement, the TeraWave constellation will ultimately scale to 5,408 satellites situated in low-Earth orbit (where Starlink and Amazon Leo reside) and in medium-Earth orbit.

    That’s larger than Amazon Leo’s planned deployment of 3,236 satellites, but if Musk gets his way, Starlink will eclipse both of Bezos’s constellations. The Federal Communications Commission recently approved a SpaceX application to launch up to a million more Starlinks for the purpose of building an orbital data center.

    Serving unique markets

    Broadly speaking, the satellite internet industry serves two types of customers: enterprise and individual users. But according to Bell, these markets can be further divided into five core segments, namely direct to device, direct to consumer, high bandwidth (for business-scale users), backhaul (providing connectivity to underserved areas), and sovereign government.

    “While Starlink is really kind of spread across all of them, Amazon and TeraWave have chosen—at least initially—to position themselves towards the higher end,” Bell said.

    Starlink indeed serves a diverse array of users, from individuals to the American government. Its primary customer base, however, consists of people living in rural and remote areas who lack access to reliable, high-speed internet. Amazon Leo ultimately plans to target that market, but its initial phase of deployment will serve select enterprise, government, and telecommunications customers.

    TeraWave is unique in that it is not at all geared toward individual customers. This network will serve “tens of thousands” of enterprise, data center, and government users, according to Blue Origin.

    “One of the big differences there is that, typically, an enterprise would negotiate a service level agreement—so there is a requirement that the company be able to provide a certain level of speed, a certain level of capacity,” Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association, told Gizmodo.

    To meet that demand, Blue Origin will design TeraWave to deliver data speeds of up to 6 terabits per second anywhere on Earth. By comparison, Starlink and Amazon Leo offer speeds ranging from hundreds of megabits to around 1 gigabit per second, which is suitable for individuals and some enterprise customers but not tailored toward high-capacity backhaul or large-scale enterprise operations.

    As these networks grow, the satellite internet industry is undergoing a rapid transformation. Competition between them—and their many other competitors—will continue to drive innovation, bringing faster speeds, higher capacity, and broader coverage to users around the world.

    “Each generation of satellite that is being launched has greater speed and capacity than the prior generation,” Stroup said. “We’re just iterating much more quickly than ever before.”

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Launches Satellite Program as Space Data Centers Pick Up Steam

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    Bezos’ Blue Origin plans a 5,408-satellite TeraWave network to serve enterprises and data centers as space-based computing gains momentum. Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for America Business Forum

    Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, is the latest entrant into the booming satellite internet business. This week, it announced TeraWave, a megaconstellation project promising to deliver data speeds of up to 6 terabits per second (Tbps) anywhere on Earth—technology that could also lay the groundwork for future data centers in space. The move is a strategic addition to another Bezos-backed effort, Amazon’s low-Earth-orbit broadband network Leo (formerly known as Project Kuiper), in a market currently dominated by SpaceX’s Starlink.

    Megaconstellations like these transmit data between Earth and orbiting satellites without cables or cell towers, extending internet access to remote and underserved regions. SpaceX’s Starlink currently operates roughly 9,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit and delivers high-speed internet in more than 150 countries. Blue Origin also faces growing international competition: China is developing two rival megaconstellations, Guowang and Qianfan, which together are expected to include more than 13,000 satellites.

    Unlike Starlink and Leo, however, TeraWave is not aimed at households. Instead, the network will serve “tens of thousands” of enterprises, government agencies and, importantly, data centers, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said on X.

    That strategy reflects the surging importance of data centers in the age of A.I. These facilities, which store and process massive volumes of text, images and other data, are straining the world’s power grids as A.I. usage explodes. Space has begun to look like an unconventional solution to that energy crunch. Several aerospace and tech companies are exploring the idea of placing data centers in orbit, where they could draw on near-limitless solar power and radiate heat directly into space.

    Last November, Limp told Yahoo Finance that data centers in space will “for sure” happen in our lifetimes. Google, SpaceX and smaller firms such as Axiom Space and Starcloud have already announced early-stage plans to build or test orbital data storage and computing systems. Space is attractive not only for energy access but also for its lower environmental footprint and the relative ease of scaling compared with building new terrestrial facilities.

    TeraWave joins a growing list of ambitious Blue Origin projects, which includes two lunar landers, a commercial space station and a Mars orbiter. The company has also made progress on New Glenn, its long-delayed reusable heavy-lift rocket designed to deploy satellites into low-Earth orbit—including Amazon’s Leo constellation and, potentially, TeraWave itself.

    For now, Amazon Leo depends on other launch providers. Since last April, the project has sent 180 satellites into orbit using rockets from United Launch Alliance and SpaceX. Under existing agreements, Blue Origin is expected to handle between 12 and 27 future Leo launches as part of the effort to build out a roughly 3,200-satellite network. Those flights hinge on the reliability of New Glenn, which is still in the testing phase.

    Bezos, who founded Blue Origin in 2000, has long said the company could eventually eclipse Amazon. “I think it’s going to be the best business that I’ve ever been involved in, but it’s going to take a while,” he said in 2024.

    Blue Origin plans to begin deploying TeraWave satellites in the fourth quarter of 2027. The constellation will consist of 5,408 optically interconnected satellites, most of them operating in low-Earth orbit, forming a high-speed network designed to serve the next generation of cloud computing and space-based infrastructure.

    Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Launches Satellite Program as Space Data Centers Pick Up Steam

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    Colette Holcomb

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  • Blue Origin’s satellite internet network TeraWave will move data at 6Tbps | TechCrunch

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    Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin has just announced a satellite internet network called TeraWave which will be capable of offering data speeds up to 6Tbps, and geared towards enterprise, data center, and government customers.

    The TeraWave constellation will use a mix of 5,280 satellites in low-Earth orbit and 128 in medium-Earth orbit, and Blue Origin plans to deploy the first ones in late 2027. It’s not immediately clear how long Blue Origin expects it will take to build out the whole network.

    The low-Earth orbit satellites Blue Origin is building will use RF connectivity and have a max data transfer speed of of 144 Gbps, while the medium-Earth variety will use an optical link that can achieve the much higher 6Tbps speed. For reference, SpaceX’s Starlink currently maxes out at 400 Mbps — though it plans to launch upgraded satellites that will offer 1 Gbps data transfer in the future.

    “TeraWave adds a space-based layer to your existing network infrastructure, providing connectivity to locations unreachable by traditional methods,” the new website for the satellite network reads.

    The announcement of the TeraWave network comes just a few months after Bezos’ other company, Amazon, announced a rebrand of its own satellite network geared toward consumers. That network, called Leo, will ultimately consist of around 3,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit and offers more traditional broadband speeds.

    Taken together, these two networks could provide more robust competition to SpaceX’s Starlink, which has become the leading satellite internet provider with more than 9 million customers. Starlink currently sells its connectivity to regular consumers, commercial customers (like airlines), and governments.

    That said, the two networks from Amazon and Blue Origin are distinct.

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    “We identified an unmet need with customers who were seeking enterprise-grade internet access with higher speeds, symmetrical upload/download speeds, more redundancy, and rapid scalability for their networks. TeraWave solves for these problems,” Blue Origin said in a statement to TechCrunch.

    Blue Origin has spent years in development on a number of projects, and is best-known for the short trips to space it offers on its small New Shepard rocket.

    The company has recently started to emerge as a multi-faceted commercial space player. In 2025, the company successfully launched its mega-rocket, New Glenn, for the first time and then repeated the feat months later. It also landed the booster stage on just its second attempt, and launched its first commercial payload for NASA.

    The company plans to send a robotic lander to the surface of the Moon this year on the third New Glenn launch. Now, with TeraWave, it will add “satellite manufacturer and operator” to its growing list of offerings.

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    Sean O’Kane

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  • The year in space: Here are the top space stories of 2025

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    STARTS RIGHT NOW. AND SPLASHDOWN. CREW NINE BACK ON EARTH. BACK ON EARTH. BREAKING AS WE COME ON THE AIR AT SEVEN. WE JUST HEARD IT. HAVE SPLASHDOWN. NEEDHAM NATICK. SONNY WILLIAMS AND FELLOW ASTRONAUT BUTCH WILMORE ARE FINALLY BACK ON EARTH. MONTHS AND MONTHS AND MONTHS AFTER. ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED. AND TAKE A LOOK AT THIS. THIS IS NEW VIDEO INTO US JUST FROM A FEW MINUTES AGO. THAT IS SONNY WILLIAMS BEING HELPED FROM THE CAPSULE ONTO HER FEET ON THE SALVAGE SHIP THAT EIGHT DAY MISSION FINALLY COMING TO AN END AFTER 286 DAYS. THANKS FOR JOINING US TONIGHT, EVERYONE. I’M ED HARDING AND I’M MARIA STEPHANOS. WE DO HAVE TEAM COVERAGE OF THIS LANDING. SONNY’S NEEDHAM NEIGHBORS WATCHING ALL OF IT. LET’S BEGIN WITH OUR DANAE BUCCI OUTSIDE OF THE SUNITA WILLIAMS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. IN THE SENSE OF PRIDE NEEDHAM FEELS FOR SONNY WILLIAMS IS EVIDENT, AND EVERYONE IS LOOKING FORWARD TO HER SAFE RETURN HOME. WE’RE BOTH VERY, VERY EXCITED TO HAVE HER BACK ON HER SAFELY. SONNY WILLIAMS HAS BEEN IN SPACE SO LONG, HER MOTHER, BONNIE PANDYA AND HER OLDER SISTER DEENA ARE ANXIOUSLY WAITING FOR HER RETURN. I FEEL LIKE, YOU KNOW, WE’RE A VERY ADAPTABLE AND WE WERE LIKE, GETTING USED TO SEEING HER EVERY WEEK ON THE SPACE STATION. IT’S BEEN AN UNEXPECTED NINE MONTH OUTER SPACE MISSION FOR THE NEEDHAM NATIVE. MY FAMILY MIGHT MAY BE A LITTLE UPSET, MAYBE A LITTLE CONCERNED, BUT USUALLY ASTRONAUT FAMILIES KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AND KNOW THAT THIS IS SOMETHING THAT COULD HAPPEN. THINGS GO WRONG ON ALMOST EVERY MISSION. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT SONNY IS LIKELY GOING THROUGH. MORE THAN RETIRED ASTRONAUT CHARLES CAMARDA, AND YOU’RE JUST ANTICIPATING SEEING YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR FRIENDS AND TELLING ALL THOSE GREAT STORIES. HE WORKED ALONGSIDE SONNY AND HER PARTNER BUTCH WILMORE FOR YEARS. BUTCH AND SONNY ARE THE TWO MOST POSITIVE PEOPLE IN THE ASTRONAUT OFFICE. THEY’RE ALWAYS SMILING. THEY’RE SO EXPERIENCED, THEY’RE PROS. BUT BEING IN SPACE FOR NINE MONTHS CAN HAVE A HUGE IMPACT ON THE BODY. THE HEART DOESN’T HAVE TO PUSH AGAINST GRAVITY, SO THE HEART GETS WEAKER. MUSCULOSKELETAL CHANGES, SO THE BONES BECOME WEAKER IN SPACE. DOCTOR LUCA PIZZA IS ON MASS GENERAL SPACE MEDICINE DIVISION. HE SAYS AS SOON AS SONNY AND HER PARTNER, BUTCH LAND OFF THE COAST OF FLORIDA, THE TWO WILL BE MET WITH A TEAM OF DOCTORS. SO THE BODY’S GOTTEN USED TO NOT PUMPING THE BLOOD SO HARD IT’S GOTTEN USED TO NOT HOLDING THE BODY UP AGAINST GRAVITY. IT’S GOT TO RELEARN ALL THOSE THINGS. DOCTOR SAYS IT WILL TAKE MONTHS FOR BOTH BUTCH AND SONNY’S BODIES TO ACCLIMATE BACK TO EARTH. WE’RE LIVE IN NEEDHAM DANAE BUCCI WCVB, NEWSCENTER FIVE. AND A WATCH PARTY IS STILL GOING ON AT THIS HOUR. RIGHT AT SONNY’S HOMETOWN OF NEEDHAM. PEOPLE THERE CHEERED. WE COULD HEAR THEM FROM HERE. SO EXCITED TO HAVE THE WILLIAMS BACK HOME. OUR SONNY WILLIAMS BACK HOME. OUR JOHN ATWATER CONTINUES TONIGHT LIVE AT THE COMMON ROOM. JOHN AND MARIA. YEAH, SO MANY ROUNDS OF CHEERING TONIGHT. THE LATEST JUST A FEW MINUTES AGO WHEN WE SAW SONNY WILLIAMS EMERGE FROM THAT CAPSULE ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER SPLASHDOWN. SO IT’S BEEN A LOT OF EXCITEMENT HERE. YOU CAN SEE DOZENS OF PEOPLE HERE STILL AT THE COMMON ROOM TONIGHT. THEY ALL CAME HERE TO EXPERIENCE THIS TOGETHER BECAUSE, WOW, IT HAS BEEN JUST A NINE MONTH ODYSSEY FOR THESE ASTRONAUTS UP THERE IN SPACE, ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE UP THERE FOR EIGHT DAYS, BUT IT TOOK A LOT LONGER TO GET THEM HOME. WHILE THEY ARE HOME TONIGHT. AND YOU CAN SEE ALL THE CHEERING HERE IN THE COMMON ROOM HERE IN NEEDHAM SONNY WILLIAMS HOMETOWN. WE SPOKE WITH A KINDERGARTEN TEACHER OVER AT SUNITA WILLIAMS ELEMENTARY. SHE AND HER STUDENTS HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS JOURNEY, AND SHE IS SO RELIEVED. TONIGHT. I WENT TO HER FIRST TWO LAUNCH ATTEMPTS THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT, AND I DIDN’T GET TO GO TO THE LAST ONE WHERE SHE DID GO UP. BUT I’VE BEEN WATCHING AND FOLLOWING MY CLASS WATCHES AND FOLLOWS. THEY WERE SO EXCITED TODAY AND NOW I’M LIKE OVER THE TOP, OVER THE MOON AND SO EXCITED. I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE SHE’S BACK. CAN’T BELIEVE SHE’S BACK AFTER SO LONG. THERE WERE TEARS IN THAT TEACHER’S EYES BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS JOURNEY. THE SCHOOL REALLY ALL OF NEEDHAM SONNY WILLIAMS, OF COURSE IN CONTACT WITH THE STUDENTS HERE IN THE SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND THEY ARE JUST LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT DAY WHEN SONNY COMES BACK HERE TO NEEDHAM FOR A

    The year in space: Here are the top space stories of 2025

    Top 10 space stories of 2025

    Updated: 7:26 PM EST Dec 24, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    From private space tourism to secret moons to new images of our very old observable universe, 2025 was an exciting year in space. The privatization of space travel continued apace, with companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin making strides this year. Despite privatization and looming funding cuts, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its various projects and endeavors still managed to surprise us and expand our knowledge of our solar system. Check out the 10 best space stories from the past year:No. 1 — The space saga of Butch and SuniWithout a doubt, the space story that filled the most airtime this year was the tale of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. In June 2024, the pair signed on for a NASA mission to conduct a crew flight test of Boeing’s Starliner craft, which had previously only been used for uncrewed tests between Earth and the International Space Station. The mission was meant to last eight days — but ended up lasting more than nine months. The stranded astronauts became space celebrities and brought renewed attention to spaceflight during a time when space travel has morphed into a blend of public-private partnerships. The astronauts were eventually brought home on SpaceX’s Crew-9 vessel in March, marking a success for SpaceX but a blow to Boeing in the private space race.Watch video of Williams and Wilmore splashing down back to Earth in the video player above.No. 2 — Perseverance finds possible hints of ancient life on MarsNASA’s Perseverance rover has been roaming the Martian surface and collecting samples since 2021. But in the summer of 2024, the rover collected rock samples from a dried riverbed near the Jezero Crater with “leopard spots.” This year, scientists said those spots could suggest the existence of ancient microbial life on the red planet. “All we can say is one of the possible explanations is microbial life, but there could be other ways to make this set of features that we see,” a researcher told The Associated Press.However, this story is not over. More testing is needed to confirm what the samples contain, meaning they need to be retrieved from Mars and brought back to labs on Earth. A Mars Sample Return trip was hopefully scheduled for the early 2030s, but various factors, including President Donald Trump’s reorganized budget plan for NASA, mean that the return expedition is on hold indefinitely. For now, Perseverance and a potential secret to ancient life sit waiting in a rocky Martian desert.No. 3 — NASA probe takes closest-ever images of sunThe Parker Solar Probe, the fastest human-made object in the universe, is on a mission to “touch the Sun” — and it’s getting pretty close. In December 2024, the probe made its closest pass yet of the solar atmosphere, traveling at a speed of 430,000 mph. On Jan. 1, 2025, it sent back the closest images of the Sun ever captured, specifically of solar wind approximately 3.8 million miles from the surface.No. 4 — NASA’s Webb telescope discovers new moon orbiting UranusIt’s not every day you find a new moon. Using NASA’s Webb space telescope, a team from the Southwest Research Institute studying the rings and moons of Uranus made a stunning discovery — a small moon, only about 6 miles wide, had been “hiding” close to the seventh planet this whole time. The discovery joins the planet’s 28 existing moons, designated S/2025 U1. However, all of Uranus’ moons are named after characters from the works of either William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope, so it will have a colorful literary name in no time.No. 5 — Third-ever interstellar object tears through our solar systemThe astronomical talk of the town this year was definitely 3I/ATLAS. First spotted by the NASA-funded ATLAS telescope in Chile, the comet started as a rapidly moving dot appearing in the sky. After NASA and the European Space Agency retraced its steps, it was confirmed that the comet was actually from outside our solar system — only the third known such object. While it was only briefly close to Earth near the end of this year, astronomers stole a few glances while they could. 3I/ATLAS is currently tracing its long path out of and away from our solar system — so long and farewell.No. 6 — Space tourism, or Katy Perry in spaceSpace tourism also had quite a year in 2025. In April, pop star Katy Perry and TV personality Gayle King boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepherd rocket with an all-female crew, a first for space travel. The technicality here is that New Shepherd is a reusable rocket, capable of vertical takeoffs and landings, designed to deliver tourists past the Karman Line, which is defined as the edge of space. It is also where you begin to experience weightlessness in atmospheric travel. Perry was reportedly so moved by the experience of entering the thermosphere that she couldn’t help singing “What A Wonderful World.” In other news, Blue Origin also recently sent the first paraplegic person into space, and SpaceX’s Fram2 mission saw four space tourists make a three-day trip around Earth’s poles.No. 7 — A nuclear reactor on the moon? It’s less crazy than it soundsActing NASA Administrator Sean Duffy made headlines earlier this year with an ambitious announcement concerning NASA’s wishes to put a nuclear reactor on Earth’s moon in the near future. While it does sound like the setup for a supervillain’s lair, the plan is actually quite practical. The name of the game in space exploration in the 21st century has become about repetition and reliability — typified by the reusable rockets favored by private space companies. NASA’s upcoming moon mission, Artemis III, will require a lot of fuel and power, especially if NASA wants to eventually station astronauts there. Add in the fact that China and Russia have announced a joint space venture to place a nuclear reactor on the moon. Before long, the international powers will be in a new space race. The moon is also becoming a critical juncture in the effort to reach Mars — the rocky satellite’s low gravity would make space missions easier. In that way, stating a goal of putting a nuclear reactor on the moon is the first step to reaching Mars, another stated goal of NASA. And for a country — and a species — that put a man on the moon only 56 years ago, anything might be possible.No. 8 — India, Poland and Hungary: Welcome to the ISSIt was a celebration on the International Space Station this summer when three astronauts from countries never before represented on the space station arrived. The last time anyone from India, Poland or Hungary traveled to orbit was in the 1970s and ‘80s, with the Soviet Space Program. While each of these countries have their own space programs, these true newcomers to the ISS came via Axiom Space, a Houston-based company that charters flights to the station. Axiom is also positioning itself as a potential replacement for the ISS when it is retired and decommissioned in 2030, carving out a niche in the private space race.No. 9 — ‘Cosmic treasure chest’: Say hello to the Vera C. Rubin ObservatoryThe summer of 2025 saw the debut of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the largest camera ever built, located on a mountaintop in Chile. According to the acting director of the National Science Foundation, the telescope “will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined.” That’s quite a claim, but Rubin already has the legwork to back it up — as part of its debut, it spotted 2,104 never-before-seen asteroids. The observatory also released a dramatic video showing the scale of its capability: the cosmic pan displays about 10 million galaxies in the camera’s wide view, which is only 0.05% of the 20 billion galaxies the observatory will map over 10 years.No. 10 — Space is now a battlefieldAside from international cooperation and discovery, space has also become a new frontier for something else: warfare. In the Russia/Ukraine war this past year, Ukraine accused Russian operators of hijacking a crucial satellite, replacing its broadcast with film of Russian military parades. More recently, there has been chatter of a Russian anti-satellite weapon, which one U.S. representative likened to “the Cuban Missile Crisis in space.”

    From private space tourism to secret moons to new images of our very old observable universe, 2025 was an exciting year in space. The privatization of space travel continued apace, with companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin making strides this year. Despite privatization and looming funding cuts, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and its various projects and endeavors still managed to surprise us and expand our knowledge of our solar system. Check out the 10 best space stories from the past year:

    No. 1 — The space saga of Butch and Suni

          In this photo provided by NASA, Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams pose for a portrait inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station's Harmony module and Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on June 13, 2024.

          NASA/AP via CNN Newsource

          Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams pose on the International Space Station.

          Without a doubt, the space story that filled the most airtime this year was the tale of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. In June 2024, the pair signed on for a NASA mission to conduct a crew flight test of Boeing’s Starliner craft, which had previously only been used for uncrewed tests between Earth and the International Space Station. The mission was meant to last eight days — but ended up lasting more than nine months. The stranded astronauts became space celebrities and brought renewed attention to spaceflight during a time when space travel has morphed into a blend of public-private partnerships. The astronauts were eventually brought home on SpaceX’s Crew-9 vessel in March, marking a success for SpaceX but a blow to Boeing in the private space race.

          Watch video of Williams and Wilmore splashing down back to Earth in the video player above.

          No. 2 — Perseverance finds possible hints of ancient life on Mars

          NASA’s Perseverance rover has been roaming the Martian surface and collecting samples since 2021. But in the summer of 2024, the rover collected rock samples from a dried riverbed near the Jezero Crater with “leopard spots.” This year, scientists said those spots could suggest the existence of ancient microbial life on the red planet. “All we can say is one of the possible explanations is microbial life, but there could be other ways to make this set of features that we see,” a researcher told The Associated Press.

          However, this story is not over. More testing is needed to confirm what the samples contain, meaning they need to be retrieved from Mars and brought back to labs on Earth. A Mars Sample Return trip was hopefully scheduled for the early 2030s, but various factors, including President Donald Trump’s reorganized budget plan for NASA, mean that the return expedition is on hold indefinitely. For now, Perseverance and a potential secret to ancient life sit waiting in a rocky Martian desert.

          No. 3 — NASA probe takes closest-ever images of sun

          The Parker Solar Probe, the fastest human-made object in the universe, is on a mission to “touch the Sun” — and it’s getting pretty close. In December 2024, the probe made its closest pass yet of the solar atmosphere, traveling at a speed of 430,000 mph. On Jan. 1, 2025, it sent back the closest images of the Sun ever captured, specifically of solar wind approximately 3.8 million miles from the surface.

          No. 4 — NASA’s Webb telescope discovers new moon orbiting Uranus

            Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope discovered a new moon orbiting Uranus in images taken by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). This image shows the moon, designated S/2025 U1, as well as 13 of the 28 other known moons orbiting the planet. (The small moon Cordelia orbits just inside the outermost ring, but is not visible in these views due to glare from the rings.) Due to the drastic differences in brightness levels, the image is a composite of three different treatments of the data, allowing the viewer to see details in the planetary atmosphere, the surrounding rings, and the orbiting moons. The data was taken with NIRCam’s wide band F150W2 filter that transmits infrared wavelengths from about 1.0 to 2.4 microns. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

            NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

            This Near Infrared Camera image shows the moon, designated S/2025 U1, as well as 13 of the 28 other known moons orbiting the planet.

            It’s not every day you find a new moon. Using NASA’s Webb space telescope, a team from the Southwest Research Institute studying the rings and moons of Uranus made a stunning discovery — a small moon, only about 6 miles wide, had been “hiding” close to the seventh planet this whole time. The discovery joins the planet’s 28 existing moons, designated S/2025 U1. However, all of Uranus’ moons are named after characters from the works of either William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope, so it will have a colorful literary name in no time.

            No. 5 — Third-ever interstellar object tears through our solar system

            Hubble captured this image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on July 21.

            NASA/ESA/David Jewitt (UCLA) via CNN Newsource

            Hubble captured this image of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on July 21.

            The astronomical talk of the town this year was definitely 3I/ATLAS. First spotted by the NASA-funded ATLAS telescope in Chile, the comet started as a rapidly moving dot appearing in the sky. After NASA and the European Space Agency retraced its steps, it was confirmed that the comet was actually from outside our solar system — only the third known such object. While it was only briefly close to Earth near the end of this year, astronomers stole a few glances while they could. 3I/ATLAS is currently tracing its long path out of and away from our solar system — so long and farewell.

            No. 6 — Space tourism, or Katy Perry in space

            Blue Origin: Katy Perry, Gayle King, 4 other women

            Blue Origin via CNN

            The all-female crew of Blue Origin’s New Shepherd.

            Space tourism also had quite a year in 2025. In April, pop star Katy Perry and TV personality Gayle King boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepherd rocket with an all-female crew, a first for space travel. The technicality here is that New Shepherd is a reusable rocket, capable of vertical takeoffs and landings, designed to deliver tourists past the Karman Line, which is defined as the edge of space. It is also where you begin to experience weightlessness in atmospheric travel. Perry was reportedly so moved by the experience of entering the thermosphere that she couldn’t help singing “What A Wonderful World.” In other news, Blue Origin also recently sent the first paraplegic person into space, and SpaceX’s Fram2 mission saw four space tourists make a three-day trip around Earth’s poles.

            No. 7 — A nuclear reactor on the moon? It’s less crazy than it sounds

              Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy made headlines earlier this year with an ambitious announcement concerning NASA’s wishes to put a nuclear reactor on Earth’s moon in the near future. While it does sound like the setup for a supervillain’s lair, the plan is actually quite practical. The name of the game in space exploration in the 21st century has become about repetition and reliability — typified by the reusable rockets favored by private space companies. NASA’s upcoming moon mission, Artemis III, will require a lot of fuel and power, especially if NASA wants to eventually station astronauts there. Add in the fact that China and Russia have announced a joint space venture to place a nuclear reactor on the moon.

              Before long, the international powers will be in a new space race. The moon is also becoming a critical juncture in the effort to reach Mars — the rocky satellite’s low gravity would make space missions easier. In that way, stating a goal of putting a nuclear reactor on the moon is the first step to reaching Mars, another stated goal of NASA. And for a country — and a species — that put a man on the moon only 56 years ago, anything might be possible.

              No. 8 — India, Poland and Hungary: Welcome to the ISS

                It was a celebration on the International Space Station this summer when three astronauts from countries never before represented on the space station arrived. The last time anyone from India, Poland or Hungary traveled to orbit was in the 1970s and ‘80s, with the Soviet Space Program. While each of these countries have their own space programs, these true newcomers to the ISS came via Axiom Space, a Houston-based company that charters flights to the station. Axiom is also positioning itself as a potential replacement for the ISS when it is retired and decommissioned in 2030, carving out a niche in the private space race.

                No. 9 — ‘Cosmic treasure chest’: Say hello to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory

                This composite image combines 678 separate images to show faint details like clouds of gas and dust in the Trifid nebula (top right) and the Lagoon nebula.

                NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory via CNN Newsource

                This composite image combines 678 separate images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to show faint details like clouds of gas and dust in the Trifid nebula (top right) and the Lagoon nebula.

                The summer of 2025 saw the debut of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the largest camera ever built, located on a mountaintop in Chile. According to the acting director of the National Science Foundation, the telescope “will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined.” That’s quite a claim, but Rubin already has the legwork to back it up — as part of its debut, it spotted 2,104 never-before-seen asteroids. The observatory also released a dramatic video showing the scale of its capability: the cosmic pan displays about 10 million galaxies in the camera’s wide view, which is only 0.05% of the 20 billion galaxies the observatory will map over 10 years.

                No. 10 — Space is now a battlefield

                Aside from international cooperation and discovery, space has also become a new frontier for something else: warfare. In the Russia/Ukraine war this past year, Ukraine accused Russian operators of hijacking a crucial satellite, replacing its broadcast with film of Russian military parades. More recently, there has been chatter of a Russian anti-satellite weapon, which one U.S. representative likened to “the Cuban Missile Crisis in space.”

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  • Paraplegic Engineer Becomes the First Wheelchair User to Blast Into Space

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    A paraplegic engineer from Germany blasted off on a dream-come-true rocket ride with five other passengers Saturday, leaving her wheelchair behind to float in space while beholding Earth from on high.

    Severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, Michaela Benthaus became the first wheelchair user in space, launching from West Texas with Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin. She was accompanied by a retired SpaceX executive also born in Germany, Hans Koenigsmann, who helped organize and, along with Blue Origin, sponsored her trip. Their ticket prices were not divulged.

    An ecstatic Benthaus said she laughed all the way up — the capsule soared more than 65 miles — and tried to turn upside down once in space.

    “It was the coolest experience,” she said shortly after landing.

    The 10-minute space-skimming flight required only minor adjustments to accommodate Benthaus, according to the company. That’s because the autonomous New Shepard capsule was designed with accessibility in mind, “making it more accessible to a wider range of people than traditional spaceflight,” said Blue Origin’s Jake Mills, an engineer who trained the crew and assisted them on launch day.

    Among Blue Origin’s previous space tourists: those with limited mobility and impaired sight or hearing, and a pair of 90-year-olds.

    For Benthaus, Blue Origin added a patient transfer board so she could scoot between the capsule’s hatch and her seat. The recovery team also unrolled a carpet on the desert floor following touchdown, providing immediate access to her wheelchair, which she left behind at liftoff. She practiced in advance, with Koenigsmann taking part with the design and testing. An elevator was already in place at the launch pad to ascend the seven stories to the capsule perched atop the rocket.

    Benthaus, 33, part of the European Space Agency’s graduate trainee program in the Netherlands, experienced snippets of weightlessness during a parabolic airplane flight out of Houston in 2022. Less than two years later, she took part in a two-week simulated space mission in Poland.

    “I never really thought that going on a spaceflight would be a real option for me because even as like a super healthy person, it’s like so competitive, right?” she told The Associated Press ahead of the flight.

    Her accident dashed whatever hope she had. “There is like no history of people with disabilities flying to space,” she said.

    When Koenigsmann approached her last year about the possibility of flying on Blue Origin and experiencing more than three minutes of weightlessness on a space hop, Benthaus thought there might be a misunderstanding. But there wasn’t, and she immediately signed on.

    It’s a private mission for Benthaus with no involvement by ESA, which this year cleared reserve astronaut John McFall, an amputee, for a future flight to the International Space Station. The former British Paralympian lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident when he was a teenager.

    An injured spinal cord means Benthaus can’t walk at all, unlike McFall who uses a prosthetic leg and could evacuate a space capsule in an emergency at touchdown by himself. Koenigsmann was designated before flight as her emergency helper; he and Mills lifted her out of the capsule and down the short flight of steps at flight’s end.

    “You should never give up on your dreams, right?” Benthaus urged following touchdown.

    Benthaus was adamant about doing as much as she could by herself. Her goal is to make not only space accessible to the disabled, but to improve accessibility on Earth too.

    While getting lots of positive feedback within “my space bubble,” she said outsiders aren’t always as inclusive.

    “I really hope it’s opening up for people like me, like I hope I’m only the start,” she said.

    Besides Koenigsmann, Benthaus shared the ride with business executives and investors, and a computer scientist. They raised Blue Origin’s list of space travelers to 86.

    Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, created Blue Origin in 2000 and launched on its first passenger spaceflight in 2021. The company has since delivered spacecraft to orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, using the bigger and more powerful New Glenn rocket, and is working to send landers to the moon.

    Copyright 2025. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Blue Origin launches wheelchair-user and 5 others on sub-orbital trip to space

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    In a space-age milestone, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched a wheelchair-using engineer and handicap advocate to the edge of space Saturday, a 10-minute trip that allowed her to enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness more than 65 miles above Earth.

    Michaela Benthaus, a German aerospace engineer who suffered a spinal cord injury in a 2018 mountain biking accident, joined a retired SpaceX manager and four entrepreneurs for the up-and-down flight to a point just above the so-called “boundary” of space.

    “It was the coolest experience!” she said after landing, joking about turning upside down in weightlessness. “I didn’t only like the view and the microgravity, but I also liked the going up. That was so cool, every stage of going up.”

    German aerospace engineer and handicap advocate Michaela Benthaus greets well wishers and Blue Origin support personnel moments after being carried from the New Shepard spacecraft. 

    Blue Origin webcast


    Benthaus was assisted during training and inside the Blue Origin capsule by Hans Koenigsmann, a former SpaceX manager and engineer who was instrumental in the development of that company’s workhorse Falcon family of rockets.

    A fellow German by birth and a naturalized U.S. citizen, Koenigsmann helped arrange Benthaus’ flight after meeting her last year.

    “I met Hans the first time online,” Benthaus said in a Blue Origin interview. “I just asked him, like, you know, you worked for so long for SpaceX, do you think that people like me can be astronauts?

    “Then he reached out to Blue Origin and told me oh, Blue actually is very excited about it. Okay, I have my doubts on it, but let’s see. Thankfully it turned out we can do it. So Hans and me (ended) up flying as a team,” Benthaus continued.

    Koenigsmann said Benthaus “basically inspired me to do this. It’s her drive that kind of convinced me I should do that, too, and to just experience something that I’ve seen from the outside for a long time.”

    122025-launch.jpg

    The New Shepard spacecraft blasts off from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site.

    Blue Origin webcast


    Benthaus was able to make her own way from her wheelchair into the New Shepard capsule before launch, scooting along a bench extending from the hatch that was provided by Blue Origin. Koenigsmann was strapped in nearby to offer assistance during the flight if needed.

    Running two days late because of last-minute technical issues, the countdown ticked smoothly to zero Saturday and the New Shepard blasted off from Blue Origin’s West Texas launch pad at 9:15 a.m. EST.

    Accelerating straight up into a mostly clear sky, the capsule’s single-stage booster reached a velocity of nearly three times the speed of sound before its hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine shut down about two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.

    At that point, the New Shepard capsule was released to continue coasting upward on its own, and the crew, now weightless, was free to briefly unstrap and float about the cabin.

    Benthaus’ legs were strapped together to keep them in place, but she, too, was free to enjoy the thrill of weightlessness as the New Shepard coasted up to a peak altitude of slightly more than 65 miles, well above the 62-mile-high point where aerodynamic forces no longer have any effect.

    At that altitude, the “sky” is deep black and Earth’s horizon is sharply curved. Passengers are able to take in the view through the largest windows ever flown in space.

    “Oh, my God,” one passenger could be heard exclaiming over the capsule’s radio.

    “Incredible,” another said.

    Falling back into the lower atmosphere, the crew was warned to get back in their seats to strap in before the onset of atmospheric deceleration. Maximum deceleration subjects New Shepard crews to about five times the normal pull of gravity.

    The booster, meanwhile, followed a similar trajectory, falling tail first back toward the launch site. Nearing the ground, the BE-3 engine re-ignited, landing legs deployed and the rocket settled to an on-target touchdown on a concrete pad near the launch gantry.

    122025-booster-land.jpg

    The reusable New Shepard booster executed an on-target landing after propelling the New Shepard capsule out of the lower atmosphere.

    Blue Origin webcast


    The New Shepard came down under three large parachutes, landing in a cloud of dust near the booster and its launch pad. Blue Origin support personnel quickly reached the spacecraft to help the crew exit.

    122025-landing.jpg

    The New Shepard capsule touched down about 10-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.

    Blue Origin webcase


    Joining Benthaus and Koenigsmann aboard the New Shepard were physicist-investor Joey Hyde, entrepreneur Neal Milch, adventurer Jason Stansell and Adonis Pouroulis, a South African entrepreneur and mining engineer.

    All six waved, smiling broadly as they climbed out of the capsule one at a time. Benthaus was last out, carried from the spacecraft by Koenigsmann and a member of Blue Origin’s recovery team to a nearby wheelchair.

    “You should never give up on your dreams, right?,” she said after landing. “I just feel very lucky, and I’m very grateful to Blue and Hans and everyone who said yes to this journey.”

    Blue Origin does not publicly disclose the cost of a New Shepard seat, but the price is thought to be upwards of $500,000 each. How Benthaus’ seat was financed was not revealed.

    122025-crew.jpg

    The Blue Origin NS-37 passengers, posing for a photo on the launch pad gantry. Left to right: Joey Hyde, Adonis Pouroulis, Hans Koenigsmann, Michaela Benthaus, Jason Stansell and Neal Milch.

    Blue Origin


    Saturday’s launch marked Blue Origin’s 16th New Shepard flight with passengers aboard since Bezos, his brother and two others blasted off on the first such flight in July 2021. Including Saturday’s flight, Blue Origin has now launched 92 men and women to space, including six who have flown twice.

    While Benthaus was the first person with a significant physical handicap to fly in space, European Space Agency astronaut John McFall, who has a prosthetic leg, has been cleared for selection to a future flight to the International Space Station.

    Benthaus said before launch the reaction to her flight aboard the New Shepard was mostly positive, saying she hopes more handicapped people might make their way to space.

    The big question for NASA and other space agencies and private companies is not so much whether handicapped astronauts can carry out their duties in the weightless environment of space. It’s more about how they can handle an emergency that might require a speedy exit from their spacecraft, either on the ground or in space.

    In an interview with CNN, Benthaus said “we’re thinking more and more about long-duration space missions; some of us want to go to the Mars in the future.”

    “That’s a very long journey. And, yes, people can get a disability on the way. People can have a stroke or break their leg or get a spinal cord injury.”

    In the end, she said, “people with disabilities actually bring value to a crew. … You develop a very special resilience.”

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  • German engineer becomes first wheelchair user launched into space

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    German engineer becomes first wheelchair user launched into space – CBS News









































    Watch CBS News



    A German aerospace engineer made history Saturday, becoming the first wheelchair user to go into space when she took a 10-minute trip aboard a Blue Origin rocket.

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  • Blue Origin’s Next Mission Is Helping Redefine Who Gets to Go to Space

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    German aerospace engineer Michaela (Michi) Benthaus has used a wheelchair ever since 2018, when a mountain biking accident led to a life-changing spinal cord injury. Today, she’s a trailblazer for accessibility in human spaceflight, and she’s about to go where no wheelchair user has gone before.

    Blue Origin is gearing up to launch Benthaus and five other civilian astronauts to suborbital space aboard New Shepherd’s 37th flight, making her the first person with paraplegia to travel beyond Earth. She will be accompanied by aerospace engineer and former SpaceX employee Hans Koenigsmann, investor Joey Hyde, entrepreneur Neal Milch, investor Adonis Pouroulis, and self-proclaimed “space nerd” Jason Stansell.

    New Shepherd flights last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to landing and allow the crew to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. The NS-37 mission is scheduled to launch from Launch Site One in West Texas no earlier than 9:30 a.m. ET next Thursday, December 18. Blue will begin livestreaming the event 40 minutes before liftoff.

    In a LinkedIn post, Benthaus said she’s “beyond excited” for the mission. “This feels like an important step since space travel for people with disabilities is still in its very early days. I’m so thankful and hope it inspires a change in mindset across the space industry, creating more opportunities for people like me.”

    Making spaceflight accessible to all

    When it comes to making spaceflight accessible to those with disabilities, there’s still much work to be done. Traditionally, astronauts selected for space missions have been highly trained, athletically fit, and able-bodied. This has led to knowledge gaps around the human factors, operational challenges, and technological limitations that prevent people with disabilities from becoming astronauts.

    Only in recent years have researchers begun to investigate these hurdles and develop ways to help people overcome them. One organization leading the charge is AstroAccess, which Benthaus has been an ambassador for since 2022.

    The advocacy group conducts microgravity and analog astronaut missions with disabled scientists, veterans, students, athletes, and artists to investigate how spacecraft environments can be designed so that all astronauts can work and thrive in space. When Benthaus became an ambassador, she participated in a parabolic flight that allowed her to experience zero gravity for the first time.

    Achieving a major milestone

    The commercial spaceflight industry—particularly space tourism—plays an important role in improving spaceflight accessibility by offering mission opportunities to a more diverse population. Earlier this year, deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) AstroAccess ambassadors completed astronaut training for New Shepherd missions.

    Now that she’s completed her own training, Benthaus is poised to become the first AstroAccess ambassador to actually participate in a New Shepherd flight. Her achievement will help validate strategies for making spaceflight accessible to people with paraplegia and pave the way for future astronauts with this condition.

    “I thought my dream of going to space had ended forever when I had my accident,” Benthaus wrote in her LinkedIn post. “I might be the first—but have no intention of being the last.”

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • Jeff Bezos’ New AI Venture Quietly Acquired an Agentic Computing Startup

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    After The New York Times story was published, Guss, Ozair, and about three dozen other people updated their LinkedIn profiles to list their affiliation with the Bezos venture. Several of those people also work at Foresite Labs.

    Details about Prometheus remain limited. Its founding date, formal name, and headquarters haven’t been publicly identified. But the dinner Bajaj hosted in June provided other clues.

    At least two other featured guests that night, including former Nvidia senior research scientist Kamyar Azizzadenesheli, quietly joined Prometheus early this year, their newly updated LinkedIn profiles show.

    Ashish Vaswani and Jakob Uszkoreit, two former Google researchers who coauthored a famous AI paper, ended up being unable to attend the dinner. But both are now founding advisers to Prometheus while running their own startups, according to LinkedIn data and a person familiar with the matter. None of the researchers responded to requests for comment.

    Built for Speed

    Ozair established General Agents last year, and the San Francisco startup released its first technology this past April. Described as “a real-time computer pilot,” Ace takes over a computer and carries out actions based on the user’s prompts. It’s part of a class of tools the AI industry calls computer agents, which can automate daily tasks on a laptop that span across different apps.

    One demo video from the launch shows Ace downloading an image from Google and sending it to someone over iMessage in under 15 seconds.

    How Ace fits into Prometheus’ plans is still murky. New versions of Ace continue to be released as recently as this month, according to public data from General Agents. The company’s website and job postings remain online, and the leader of a team in India helping train Ace also joined Prometheus, according to their LinkedIn profile

    Harsha Abegunasekara, cofounder and CEO of Donely, which makes a competitor to Ace, says he learned of the General Agents acquisition from an investor in Ozair’s startup. The deal has been a mixed bag for Donely. Some potential investors are pleased that a well-regarded rival may be off the board, while others are worried about going up against Bezos if Ace becomes a crucial part of what Prometheus develops.

    “There is something important there for Prometheus to get the entire company,” Abegunasekara says. “What General Agents really cracked early on is speed—Ace runs on your computer at light speed. We’ve been working on that for six months and haven’t achieved it yet.”

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    Paresh Dave

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  • Blue Origin Shows Off Its MK1 Lunar Lander—and It’s Way Bigger Than Apollo’s

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    Riding the high of its show-stopping New Glenn flight earlier this month, Blue Origin is now aiming even higher—toward the Moon. Now, the company’s lunar ambitions seem more tangible than ever with the unveiling of the Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) lunar lander.

    In an X post on Friday, Blue Origin owner and founder Jeff Bezos shared a first look at MK1. This 26-foot-tall (8-meter-tall) cargo lander is expected to embark on its first mission during the first quarter of 2026, touching down near the Shackleton crater at the Moon’s south pole.

    Attempting this feat within the next four months will be high risk, high reward for Blue Origin. If Blue can pull off an uncrewed lunar landing before SpaceX, it could give the company a strategic advantage as NASA reevaluates lander providers for Artemis 3. But the tight timeline and complex hardware will present numerous challenges.

    Bezos’s big lander

    According to Bezos, MK1 is smaller than Blue Origin’s human lander, MK2, but larger than NASA’s Apollo lander. This single-launch spacecraft is designed to launch aboard New Glenn and ferry up to 3.3 tons (3 metric tons) of payload to the lunar surface.

    The Blue Moon Pathfinder mission will demonstrate and validate the lander’s hardware and systems. This includes its never-before-flown BE-7 engine, cryogenic fluid power and propulsion systems, avionics, continuous downlink communications, and precision landing.

    MK1 will also be carrying a NASA payload called SCALPSS (Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies). This array of cameras will collect imagery during and after MK1’s descent, gathering critical data to assist future Moon landings and improve NASA’s understanding of how they affect the lunar surface.

    MK1 is the largest commercial cargo lander ever built, capable of carrying far more payload than any of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) landers. MK1’s height could put it at greater risk of toppling over during its landing attempt, especially if its critical landing precision and control systems do not perform as expected.

    Blue Origin will soon conduct “fully integrated checkout tests” of MK1, according to Bezos. This refers to ground tests that will evaluate performance for all the lander’s systems and hardware to ensure that it’s ready for flight.

    This could help Blue anticipate and address issues during MK1’s deployment and landing attempt, but because it cannot fully replicate the lunar environment, unforeseen challenges could still arise.

    Crunch time

    Blue Origin’s goal of launching Blue Moon Pathfinder before the end of Q1 is very ambitious. Achieving an uncrewed lunar landing is a critical milestone that Blue ought not to rush, as ensuring mission success will require meticulous testing and validation of all systems.

    Still, the timing appears to be right for several reasons. New Glenn achieved every single one of its mission objectives during its second test flight on November 13, indicating that it’s ready to launch a lunar landing mission. MK1’s development appears to be on track, and in theory, it could be ready to launch within the next several months—though ground testing could result in delays.

    Perhaps the biggest motivator, however, is the Artemis 3 carrot dangling in front of Bezos’s face. NASA originally tapped SpaceX to build the Human Landing System (HLS) that will deliver the Artemis 3 astronauts to the Moon in mid-2027, but significant delays prompted the agency to reopen the contract in October.

    Blue Origin has since stepped up to the plate. NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens previously told Gizmodo that the agency is evaluating plans from both SpaceX and Blue Origin for acceleration of Artemis 3 lander production. SpaceX detailed its plans to simplify the HLS architecture in late October, but leaked internal documents suggest the company still won’t be ready for an Artemis 3 launch until September 2028.

    If NASA decides to go with Blue instead, it would be the company’s MK2 lander that would carry the Artemis 3 crew to the surface of the Moon. Demonstrating an uncrewed lunar landing with MK1 is a critical step toward the deployment of MK2, as these two landers share much of the same systems and hardware.

    Hitting this milestone within the next four months would certainly give Blue a competitive edge, as SpaceX is nowhere close to a lunar landing. Still, Bezos ought not to let ambition get in the way of the Pathfinder mission’s success—especially with a NASA payload onboard. Failure could set the company’s lunar program back years.

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • Blue Origin Will Make Its New Glenn Rocket Even Bigger to Rival SpaceX

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    Following the success of New Glenn’s second test flight, Blue Origin announced a super-heavy variant of its rocket that could compete with SpaceX’s Starship.

    Jeff Bezos’ rocket company unveiled the new design for its rocket, named New Glenn 9×4 for the number of engines it boasts on the booster and upper stage. That’s an increase of two engines for each stage from New Glenn’s current design, which features seven engines on the booster and two on the upper stage.

    “The next chapter in New Glenn’s roadmap is a new super-heavy class rocket,” Blue Origin wrote in a statement. The company recently launched New Glenn for its second mission, sending NASA’s ESCAPADE mission on its way to Mars. Although Blue Origin didn’t specify when it would start launching the larger variant of New Glenn, the rocket has a packed schedule for 2026 and 2027.

    Onto bigger things

    Blue Origin debuted its New Glenn rocket in January after years of delays. The rocket’s inaugural flight didn’t go so smoothly, with the company failing to recover the booster during its descent. An investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration laid out seven corrective measures for the rocket to fly again, and its second mission was a major success for the company.

    Now, Blue Origin is focusing on going bigger. Outfitted with nine engines on the booster and four on the upper stage, the added thrust will allow the new New Glenn to lift more than 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, over 14 metric tons directly to geosynchronous orbit, and over 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection. That’s way below Starship’s capability of carrying up to 150 metric tons to low Earth orbit, but it’s a powerful launch vehicle nonetheless.

    The upgraded New Glenn will also feature a larger 28.5-foot (8.7-meter) fairing to allow for bigger payloads. “Both vehicles: 9×4 and our current variant, 7×2, will serve the market concurrently, giving customers more launch options for their missions, including mega-constellations, lunar and deep space exploration, and national security imperatives such as Golden Dome,” Blue Origin wrote.

    Dave Limp, Blue Origin’s CEO, posted an illustration of the upgraded New Glenn standing taller next to the Saturn V rocket that was used to launch astronauts to the Moon as part of NASA’s Apollo program. New Glenn 9×4 also appears much larger than its predecessor.

    The success of New Glenn’s second flight proved the rocket’s worthiness in the orbital launch game. With the super-heavy variant of its New Glenn rocket, Blue Origin will be able to compete with SpaceX on an even larger scale.

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  • Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket safely made it to space a second time

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    Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket has completed its second flight, The Washington Post reports. The rocket launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday, and successfully separated from its first-stage booster, which later landed on a sea platform Blue Origin calls “Jacklyn.”

    The launch marks the first time the space startup has been able to catch a New Glenn booster for later reuse. The maiden flight of the rocket in January was successful in the sense that it got New Glenn into space, but Blue Origin wasn’t able to save the booster from a watery grave. The company hoped to launch its second New Glenn mission on November 9, but cancelled it last minute due to weather.

    New Glenn’s second mission is also notable because of its payload: The rocket ferried NASA satellites to space that are destined for Mars as part of the agency’s ESCAPADE mission. Considering SpaceX’s close relationship with NASA, Blue Origin working with the agency could be an important vote of confidence.

    It could also mean New Glenn is in a good position to help another company founded by Jeff Bezos accelerate its satellite plans. The Post writes that Blue Origin has an existing agreement with Amazon to launch its recently rebranded Amazon Leo satellites into space. Leo is positioned as a competitor to Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service.

    While SpaceX has completed many more launches with its Starship rocket than Blue Origin has, it’s also had more than a few explosive failures along the way. Blue Origin still needs more missions under its belt, but if it can repeat its success with New Glenn, it could prove to be a threat to SpaceX.

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  • Blue Origin Launches Huge Rocket Carrying Twin NASA Spacecraft To Mars – KXL

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Blue Origin launched its huge New Glenn rocket Thursday with a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars.

    It was only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos’ company and NASA are counting on to get people and supplies to the moon — and it was a complete success.

    The 321-foot (98-meter) New Glenn blasted into the afternoon sky from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA’s twin Mars orbiters on a drawn-out journey to the red planet. Liftoff was stalled four days by lousy local weather as well as solar storms strong enough to paint the skies with auroras as far south as Florida.

    In a remarkable first, Blue Origin recovered the booster following its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters, an essential step to recycle and slash costs similar to SpaceX. Company employees cheered wildly as the booster landed upright on a barge 375 miles (600 kilometers) offshore. An ecstatic Bezos watched the action from Launch Control.

    “Next stop, moon!” employees chanted following the booster’s bull’s-eye landing. Twenty minutes later, the rocket’s upper stage deployed the two Mars orbiters in space, the mission’s main objective. Congratulations poured in from NASA officials as well as SpaceX’s Elon Musk, whose booster landings are now routine.

    New Glenn’s inaugural test flight in January delivered a prototype satellite to orbit, but failed to land the booster on its floating platform in the Atlantic.

    The identical Mars orbiters, named Escapade, will spend a year hanging out near Earth, stationing themselves 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away. Once Earth and Mars are properly aligned next fall, the duo will get a gravity assist from Earth to head to the red planet, arriving in 2027.

    Once around Mars, the spacecraft will map the planet’s upper atmosphere and scattered magnetic fields, studying how these realms interact with the solar wind. The observations should shed light on the processes behind the escaping Martian atmosphere, helping to explain how the planet went from wet and warm to dry and dusty. Scientists will also learn how best to protect astronauts against Mars’ harsh radiation environment.

    “We really, really want to understand the interaction of the solar wind with Mars better than we do now,” Escapade’s lead scientist, Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley, said ahead of the launch. “Escapade is going to bring an unprecedented stereo viewpoint because we’re going to have two spacecraft at the same time.”

    It’s a relatively low-budget mission, coming in under $80 million, that’s managed and operated by UC Berkeley. NASA saved money by signing up for one of New Glenn’s early flights. The Mars orbiters should have blasted off last fall, but NASA passed up that ideal launch window — Earth and Mars line up for a quick transit just every two years — because of feared delays with Blue Origin’s brand-new rocket.

    Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the world, New Glenn is five times bigger than the New Shepard rockets sending wealthy clients to the edge of space from West Texas. Blue Origin plans to launch a prototype Blue Moon lunar lander on a demo mission in the coming months aboard New Glenn.

    Created in 2000 by Bezos, Amazon’s founder, Blue Origin already holds a NASA contract for the third moon landing by astronauts under the Artemis program. Musk’s SpaceX beat out Blue Origin for the first and second crew landings, using Starships, nearly 100 feet (30 meters) taller than Bezos’ New Glenn.

    But last month NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy reopened the contract for the first crewed moon landing, citing concern over the pace of Starship’s progress in flight tests from Texas. Blue Origin as well as SpaceX have presented accelerated landing plans.

    NASA is on track to send astronauts around the moon early next year using its own Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket. The next Artemis crew would attempt to land; the space agency is pressing to get astronauts back on the lunar surface by decade’s end in order to beat China.

    Twelve astronauts walked on the moon more than a half-century ago during NASA’s Apollo program.

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    Jordan Vawter

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  • Blue Origin launches twin NASA Mars probes in second flight of New Glenn rocket

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    Blue Origin launched its second heavy-lift New Glenn rocket Thursday, putting two small NASA satellites onto a long, looping course to Mars to learn more about how the sun has slowly blown away the red planet’s once-thick atmosphere.

    The centerpiece of Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos’ space ambitions, the towering 321-foot-tall New Glenn rocket’s seven methane-burning main engines ignited at 3:55 p.m. ET, majestically pushing the booster skyward atop 3.8 million pounds of thrust.

    A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025.

    John Raoux / AP


    The launch came three days late due to stormy weather on Earth and in space, where a powerful solar storm buffeted Earth’s atmosphere with a torrent of high-energy radiation that could have caused electrical problems with the rocket or its payloads.

    The storm had abated by launch time Wednesday, and Blue Origin employees, looking on from viewing sites several miles from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station launch pad, cheered and applauded as the booster climbed skyward, followed moments later by the booming roar of its engines sweeping across the Space Coast. 

    111325-launch3.jpg

    The intense blue-white flame from the seven methane-fueled BE-4 main engines powering the New Glenn first stage indicates good performance as the rocket climbs out of the lower atmosphere.

    Blue Origin


    The New Glenn’s maiden flight last January successfully boosted a Blue Origin payload into orbit, but the reusable first stage failed in its attempt to reach an offshore landing ship, named after Bezos’ mother Jacklyn. 

    The 188-foot-tall first stage launched Wednesday, nicknamed “Never Tell Me The Odds,” featured a variety of upgrades to improve performance. This time around, the big rocket flew itself to an on-target touchdown, prompting more cheers and applause from Blue Origin workers. 

    Much like returning SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, the larger New Glenn booster will be hauled back to Port Canaveral and, depending on its condition, be refurbished and readied for use on an upcoming New Glenn flight.

    111325-land1.jpg

    The New Glenn first stage, moments after a successful touchdown on a Blue Origin landing barge. The landing marked a major milestone for Blue, which plans to haul the booster back to Port Canaveral for inspections, refurbishment and re-launch on an upcoming mission.

    Spaceflight Now/Blue Origin


    The second stage, meanwhile, pressed ahead, carrying out two firings of its twin engines to reach the planned Earth-escape trajectory. Thirty-three minutes after liftoff, the ESCAPADE satellites were released to fly on their own.

    The NASA-sponsored payload, managed by the University of California, Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, is made up of two small, low-budget satellites known as Blue and Gold that make up the heart of the ESCAPADE mission. The acronym stands for Escape, Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers.

    The probes were built for UC Berkeley by Rocketlab under a NASA program intended to develop lower-cost, fast-track planetary missions.

    ESCAPADE cost $107.4 million, a bargain compared to the cost of more traditional, more sophisticated planetary spacecraft that can cost hundreds of millions to well over a billion dollars each.

    The ESCAPADE probes were originally expected to hitch a ride to Mars a few years ago with NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe. But for a variety of reasons, the Mars satellites mission ultimately ended up on New Glenn’s second flight.

    Mars launch windows typically open every two years when Earth and the red planet reach favorable positions in their orbits to permit direct flights using current rockets. The next such window opens in 2026.

    escaade-mars-artist.jpg

    An artist’s impression of the twin ESCAPADE probes in orbit around Mars.

    UC Bereley/NASA


    To make Wednesday’s New Glenn launch work in 2025, mission planners with Advanced Space LLC came up with an innovative flight plan, one that will take Blue and Gold longer to reach Mars but will enable more flexible trajectories for future missions.

    The probes were deployed on a trajectory that will carry them a million miles out, well past the moon’s orbit, where they will loiter for the next 11 months before heading back toward Earth.

    Passing within 600 miles of Earth in November 2027, the ESCAPADE probes will make velocity-boosting gravity assist flybys, augmented by onboard propulsion, to finally head for Mars.

    In all, the twin spacecraft will spend a full year in that initial kidney bean-shaped orbit out past the moon and back, and another 10 months in transit to Mars. The probes won’t reach the red planet until September 2027.

    “We are using a very flexible … approach where we go into a loiter orbit around Earth in order to sort of wait until Earth and Mars are lined up correctly in November of next year to go to Mars,” said Robert Lillis, the principal investigator.

    “This is an exciting, flexible way to get to Mars because in the future … we could potentially queue up spacecraft using the approach that ESCAPADE is pioneering” without having to wait for a planetary launch window to open, Lillis said.

    While the ESCAPADE mission is modest compared to Mars rovers and more sophisticated orbiters, the probes are designed to answer key questions about the evolution of the Martian atmosphere.

    Mars once had a global magnetic field like Earth, but its molten core, which powered that field, mostly froze in place long ago, leaving only patchy, isolated remnants of that once-protective field in magnetized deposits.

    Without a protective global field like Earth’s, the Martian atmosphere faces a constant barrage of high-speed electrons and protons blown away from the sun and from dense clouds of charged particles erupting from powerful solar storms.

    Working in tandem, first in the same orbit at different distances from each other and then from different altitudes, Blue and Gold will measure how the solar wind and energetic electrons and protons from solar storms interact with the Martian atmosphere.

    Data from earlier Mars satellites showed the planet’s atmosphere is constantly being stripped by those interactions, but exactly how that happens over time is not fully understood.

    “We really, really want to understand the interaction of the solar wind with Mars better than we do now,” Lillis said. “We know that atmospheric escape from Mars is a major driver for the evolution of the Martian climate. We know that Mars at least was episodically warm and wet for a couple billion years, but hasn’t been so for about 2 billion years or so. And we think atmospheric escape is a major reason for that.”

    Blue and Gold will provide what amounts to a stereo view of those processes.

    “If you only have one spacecraft, you can either measure what the sun is throwing at Mars, the so-called space weather environment upstream of Mars, or you can measure the conditions close to Mars in its upper atmosphere, where the atmosphere is escaping,” Lillis said.

    “You can’t be in two places at once. But we can, because we have two spacecraft to do this. So we can really get that cause-and-effect at the same time. We’ve never had that before, and that’s really exciting,” Lillis said.

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  • Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket set for Mars mission from Florida’s Space Coast

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    Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center on Thursday.The launch window opens at 2:57 p.m. and closes at 4:25 p.m., following delays due to space weather conditions.Over the last hour and a half, crews have begun loading propellant onto the New Glenn.The launch was postponed on Wednesday due to highly elevated solar activity, which can be hazardous for rockets. This activity is a result of geomagnetic storms that also produce the aurora, also known as the northern lights. Sunday’s launch was also scrubbed due to adverse weather conditions on the ground.This mission is pivotal for Blue Origin, as Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy hinted that NASA might select a different company for its Artemis III mission, which aims to return humans to the moon. Duffy suggested that Blue Origin could potentially replace SpaceX for this mission.Dr. Ken Kremer, a research chemist, said, “I think they have an excellent chance to get this contract.”Dr. Don Platt from Florida Tech emphasized the importance of the mission’s success, stating, “The most important thing is to make sure the escapade spacecraft is on the trajectory to Mars and so they’re able to put that into the proper orbit. Anything short of that is not a success.”Blue Origin will also monitor recovery weather conditions, as they aim to land the booster, a feat they did not attempt during their first launch in February. >> WESH 2 will stream the launch in the video player above.

    Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center on Thursday.

    The launch window opens at 2:57 p.m. and closes at 4:25 p.m., following delays due to space weather conditions.

    Over the last hour and a half, crews have begun loading propellant onto the New Glenn.

    The launch was postponed on Wednesday due to highly elevated solar activity, which can be hazardous for rockets.

    This activity is a result of geomagnetic storms that also produce the aurora, also known as the northern lights. Sunday’s launch was also scrubbed due to adverse weather conditions on the ground.

    This mission is pivotal for Blue Origin, as Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy hinted that NASA might select a different company for its Artemis III mission, which aims to return humans to the moon.

    Duffy suggested that Blue Origin could potentially replace SpaceX for this mission.

    Dr. Ken Kremer, a research chemist, said, “I think they have an excellent chance to get this contract.”

    Dr. Don Platt from Florida Tech emphasized the importance of the mission’s success, stating, “The most important thing is to make sure the escapade spacecraft is on the trajectory to Mars and so they’re able to put that into the proper orbit. Anything short of that is not a success.”

    Blue Origin will also monitor recovery weather conditions, as they aim to land the booster, a feat they did not attempt during their first launch in February.

    >> WESH 2 will stream the launch in the video player above.

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  • Blue Origin plans second launch of New Glenn mega-rocket on November 9 | TechCrunch

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    Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is finally ready to try a second launch of its super heavy-lift rocket New Glenn. The company announced on Wednesday that it will attempt the launch as early as Sunday, November 9, from Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

    New Glenn’s first flight took place back in January, and it was mostly successful. The rocket’s second stage made it into orbit, but the first stage exploded on its return to Earth before Blue Origin could attempt to land it on a drone ship in the ocean.

    Earlier this year, the company said it would try to launch New Glenn for a second time in “late spring.” That timeline slipped a few times, though. Blue Origin is being extra careful with the second launch in part because it will be carrying cargo on behalf of paying customers this time. The main cargo is NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, which are headed to Mars. A Viasat tech demonstrator will also be on board.

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    Sean O’Kane

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  • Bezos predicts that millions will live in space kind of soon | TechCrunch

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    Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made a rare public appearance at Italian Tech Week in Turin on Friday and used the opportunity to predict that millions of people will be living in space “in the next couple of decades,” the Financial Times reports.

    Speaking with John Elkann, a scion of Italy’s Agnelli dynasty, Bezos, who also founded rocket company Blue Origin, insisted people will be living in space “mostly because they want to,” and that robots will handle the grunt work, while vast AI data centers float overhead.

    The pronouncement sounds a little like Bezos trying to one-up his space rival. Elon Musk has spent years predicting humans will colonize Mars and suggested a million people could live there by 2050, which is right around the corner, basically. Maybe both gazillionaires are losing touch, or else they know something the rest of us refreshing Zillow do not.

    Bezos was equally bullish on other fronts, defending the AI investment boom as a “good” kind of bubble given that it’s “industrial” rather than “financial.”

    “There has never been a better time to be excited about the future,” he reportedly declared, as audience members (in our imagination) exchanged uncertain glances across the Turin auditorium.

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    Connie Loizos

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  • Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Wins Contract to Take NASA Rover to the Moon

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    NASA’s VIPER lunar rover could be delivered to the moon by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company. The US space agency has awarded the company a task order to design a delivery plan for the rover, with a future delivery option.

    The award, worth $190 million, was issued through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which the agency is using to buy delivery services to the moon from private companies. The award does not directly imply a delivery agreement; first, NASA will verify whether Blue Origin is capable of successfully sending the expensive VIPER rover to the moon’s south pole. To be eligible to take on the VIPER delivery, the company must place its Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander—complete with a NASA technology payload—on the lunar surface by the end of 2025.

    Blue Origin won this contract to send cargo to the moon in 2023, and designed the Blue Moon MK1 in order to fulfil it. On this mission, it will carry NASA stereo cameras that will conduct surface surveys, in addition to small spheres equipped with laser technology for mission tracking.

    “There is an option on the contract to deliver and safely deploy the rover to the Moon’s surface. NASA will make the decision to exercise that option after the execution and review of the base task and of Blue Origin’s first flight of the Blue Moon MK1 lander,” the agency said in a statement.

    On the same day as NASA announced the award, Blue Origin wrote on X: “Our second Blue Moon MK1 lander is already in production and well-suited to support the VIPER rover. Building on the learnings from our first MK1 lander, this mission is important for future lunar permanence and will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the Moon.”

    VIPER—which stands for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover—has been designed by NASA scientists to explore the moon’s south pole for ice and other resources of interest. It is about 2.5 meters tall, weighs nearly 500 kilograms, and has a one-meter drill and three scientific instruments. The vehicle had been scheduled to launch in 2023, only for that date to be pushed back. Then, in the face of rising costs and further delays, in July 2024 NASA said it had cancelled the mission. The CLPS award to Blue Origin now appears to have revived the program.

    The arrival of private space companies has the potential to reduce the traditional costs of space exploration while allowing mission managers to focus on scientific issues. Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, and SpaceX are just some of the companies that have emerged in this sector and won CLPS contracts with NASA.

    “NASA is leading the world in exploring more of the Moon than ever before, and this delivery is just one of many ways we’re leveraging US industry to support a long-term American presence on the lunar surface,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy in a statement. “Our rover will explore the extreme environment of the lunar South Pole, traveling to small, permanently shadowed regions to help inform future landing sites for our astronauts and better understand the Moon’s environment—important insights for sustaining humans over longer missions, as America leads our future in space.”

    This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

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    Jorge Garay

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  • NASA Couldn’t Get Its Rover to the Moon, So Blue Origin Will Do It Instead

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    NASA’s water-hunting lunar rover was given a second chance to reach the surface of the Moon. Blue Origin will deliver VIPER to the Moon on an upcoming lunar lander mission, resurrecting the exploration mission after it was called off last year.

    NASA contracted Blue Origin to transport its lunar rover to the Moon as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, was originally set to launch in 2023 but faced several delays until the mission was called off altogether as it threatened to disrupt other payload deliveries to the Moon. Under the new deal, VIPER will hitch a ride to the Moon on board Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) lander, scheduled to launch in 2027.

    Water hunter

    VIPER is designed to search for water ice in the lunar south pole, an integral aspect of establishing a sustainable human presence on the Moon’s surface as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

    “Our rover will explore the extreme environment of the lunar South Pole, traveling to small, permanently shadowed regions to help inform future landing sites for our astronauts and better understand the Moon’s environment—important insights for sustaining humans over longer missions, as America leads our future in space,” Sean Duffy, acting NASA administrator, said in a statement.

    The boxy, four-wheeled rover is equipped with four instruments and headlights, which will be necessary to explore the permanently shadowed craters on the Moon. Over the course of its 100-day mission, VIPER is designed to map the location and abundance of water at the lunar south pole.

    VIPER was originally meant to launch with Astrobotic’s Griffin lander under a Commercial Lunar Payload Services task order worth $322 million. The launch date was first pushed back to 2024 and later to 2025 due to additional schedule and supply chain delays. In July 2024, NASA decided to cancel the mission altogether, stating that it threatens to disrupt other commercial payload missions to the Moon.

    NASA initially decided to take apart the robot and reuse its parts for future missions. The agency’s decision, however, sparked outrage from the science community over the potential loss of VIPER. In response, NASA put out a call for the private sector to take over its robot and send it to the Moon. At that point, NASA had already spent $450 million developing VIPER, and the agency declared that it wouldn’t spend any more money in getting the rover to land on the Moon.

    “NASA is committed to studying and exploring the Moon, including learning more about water on the lunar surface, to help determine how we can harness local resources for future human exploration,” Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement. “We’ve been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals. This private sector-developed landing capability enables this delivery and focuses our investments accordingly—supporting American leadership in space and ensuring our long-term exploration is robust and affordable.”

    In selecting Blue Origin to transport VIPER to the Moon, NASA has kept the mission alive for what it had previously described as the most capable robot ever sent to the lunar surface.

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    Passant Rabie

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