The maiden voyage of Blue Origin's massive new rocket won't be for NASA

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Image Credits: Blue Origin (opens in a new window)

The world will have to wait a little longer to see Blue Origin’s massive New Glenn rocket fly for the first time.

That rocket had been scheduled to launch two spacecraft to Mars for NASA during an eight-day window that opens on October 13. But NASA announced on Friday that it was pushing the mission, called ESCAPADE, to spring 2025, citing potential cost and technical issues with de-fueling the two satellites. New Glenn will now launch some of the company’s own technology in November instead.

The first launch of a new rocket always poses enormous risk, both to the launch vehicle and the payload, and Blue Origin has been racing to get New Glenn ready for launch in a months’ time. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp acknowledged in a post on X that there was still much to do: “Still lots to do but progress,” he said.

Recent reporting from Bloomberg which disclosed major testing failures of New Glenn hardware also suggests that the timeframe was ambitious.

An October launch would’ve seen the spacecraft arrive in Mars orbit in early September 2025. It’s unclear how long the transit time to Mars will be with the new launch window. NASA has not responded to TechCrunch’s inquiry by publication time. 

Instead of the ESCAPADE spacecraft, the first New Glenn mission, which has been pushed to November, will carry Blue Ring technology. It will also be the first certification flight under the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. Blue Origin must complete two successful New Glenn missions before it can start launching national security payloads under NSSL. 

Industry insiders say that NASA held a critical meeting yesterday on whether to fuel the two spacecraft; while NASA declined to comment, in a statement it essentially confirms that the risks of a launch delay after fueling were ultimately too large: “The decision was made to avoid significant cost, schedule, and technical challenges associated with potentially removing fuel from the spacecraft in the event of a launch delay, which could be caused by a number of factors.” 

The spacecraft, which were built by Rocket Lab, use hypergolic propellants that are highly toxic. Christophe Mandy, the lead systems engineer for the ESCAPADE mission at Rocket Lab, told TechCrunch in an interview last month that having to fuel, and then de-fuel, the spacecraft introduces risk to the two satellites. 

NASA and Rocket Lab aim to prove we can go to Mars for 1/10 the price

“If we are fueled, and then we have to de-fuel, getting the spacecraft cleaned increases various forms of risk in the spacecraft, which need to be handled,” he said. “So if they’ve been fueled, it opens up a certain amount of work in order to make the spacecraft back ready to launch.” 

Cruise Origin robotaxi picking up passengers in SF

GM’s Cruise abandons Origin robotaxi, takes $583 million charge

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Cruise Origin robotaxi picking up passengers in SF

Image Credits: Cruise

GM’s self-driving car subsidiary Cruise is scrapping plans to build the Origin — a purpose-built robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals — and will instead use the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt in its operations.

GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra told shareholders Tuesday the decision will “simplify their path to scale” and addresses the regulatory uncertainty faced with the Origin robotaxi because of its unique design. The per-unit costs will also be much lower, which will help Cruise optimize its resources, Barra said in the shareholder letter released alongside the company’s second-quarter earnings. 

GM reported a financial charge of $583 million in the second quarter that is tied to the non-cash write-off of Origin assets and other restructuring costs. The Cruise subsidiary had an operating loss of $1.14 billion in the second quarter that included a $605 million impairment charge. 

While the Barra comments appear to hedge whether the Origin will return, the vehicle that GM once projected would number “in the tens of thousands” is effectively dead. The decision also gives the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt another purpose. GM expects to begin production of the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt in 2025. A GM spokesperson declined to share when the autonomous version of the new Chevy Bolt would be on public roads. 

“GM and Cruise are optimizing resources to focus development of our next autonomous vehicle on the next generation Bolt instead of the Origin,” a GM spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “This shift creates a more cost-effective and scalable option for pursuing an autonomous future faster, while avoiding the uncertain path to regulatory compliance in the U.S. that could impede scaling of the Origin. The Origin does not include a steering wheel and brake pedals and uses campfire seating, a design that is currently not permitted.” 

Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt, who was CEO until resigning in December, was critical of the decision.

“Disappointed to see GM kill the Origin,” Vogt posted on social media network X. “Would have been amazing for cities. GM repeatedly finds themselves with a 5-10 year head start, but then fumbles the ball, shuts things down, and loses the lead. Anyone remember the EV1? It’s like someone keeps letting them look into a crystal ball and then they just go, “nah, we’re good”

The Origin — once the symbol of Cruise’s commercial future and a potential profit center for GM — has been on shaky ground since November 2023 when the company paused production of the purpose-built robotaxi after losing its permits to operate in California and voluntarily halting operations in other states. The California Department of Motor Vehicles, the agency that regulates autonomous vehicles in the state, suspended Cruise’s deployment and driverless testing permits in October after an incident in which a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian, who had initially been hit by a human-driven car.

Within two months of the incident, Vogt had resigned, about 24% of its workforce was laid off, and GM asserted more control over the embattled company. Since then, Cruise has hired Marc Whitten as its new CEO, created a chief safety officer position and slowly restarted testing in Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. Cruise, a San Francisco-based startup acquired by GM in 2016, has not received approval from California regulators to relaunch operations there. 

Cruise unveiled the Origin in January 2020. It was the product of a multi-year collaboration with parent company GM and investor Honda that was designed for a ridesharing service. Cruise, and the nascent autonomous vehicle industry, was in a rosier, more ambitious place back then. The industry was beginning to consolidate and aggressive timelines for commercial driverless operations had slipped. But automakers and tech companies were still investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the effort. 

The effort to commercialize autonomous vehicle technology, and specifically robotaxis, has proven to be far costlier and time-consuming than many companies expected. Even after eliminating jobs and slashing costs, Cruise is still losing hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter. 

This article originally published at 3:30 a.m. PT and has been updated to include Kyle Vogt’s comments.

GM’s Cruise abandons Origin robotaxi, takes $583 million charge

by with No Comment Tech

Cruise Origin robotaxi picking up passengers in SF

Image Credits: Cruise

GM’s self-driving car subsidiary Cruise is scrapping plans to build the Origin — a purpose-built robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals — and will instead use the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt in its operations.

GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra told shareholders Tuesday the decision will “simplify their path to scale” and addresses the regulatory uncertainty faced with the Origin robotaxi because of its unique design. The per-unit costs will also be much lower, which will help Cruise optimize its resources, Barra said in the shareholder letter released alongside the company’s second-quarter earnings. 

GM reported a financial charge of $583 million in the second quarter that is tied to the non-cash write-off of Origin assets and other restructuring costs. The Cruise subsidiary had an operating loss of $1.14 billion in the second quarter that included a $605 million impairment charge. 

While the Barra comments appear to hedge whether the Origin will return, the vehicle that GM once projected would number “in the tens of thousands” is effectively dead. The decision also gives the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt another purpose. GM expects to begin production of the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt in 2025. A GM spokesperson declined to share when the autonomous version of the new Chevy Bolt would be on public roads. 

“GM and Cruise are optimizing resources to focus development of our next autonomous vehicle on the next generation Bolt instead of the Origin,” a GM spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “This shift creates a more cost-effective and scalable option for pursuing an autonomous future faster, while avoiding the uncertain path to regulatory compliance in the U.S. that could impede scaling of the Origin. The Origin does not include a steering wheel and brake pedals and uses campfire seating, a design that is currently not permitted.” 

Cruise co-founder Kyle Vogt, who was CEO until resigning in December, was critical of the decision.

“Disappointed to see GM kill the Origin,” Vogt posted on social media network X. “Would have been amazing for cities. GM repeatedly finds themselves with a 5-10 year head start, but then fumbles the ball, shuts things down, and loses the lead. Anyone remember the EV1? It’s like someone keeps letting them look into a crystal ball and then they just go, “nah, we’re good”

The Origin — once the symbol of Cruise’s commercial future and a potential profit center for GM — has been on shaky ground since November 2023 when the company paused production of the purpose-built robotaxi after losing its permits to operate in California and voluntarily halting operations in other states. The California Department of Motor Vehicles, the agency that regulates autonomous vehicles in the state, suspended Cruise’s deployment and driverless testing permits in October after an incident in which a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian, who had initially been hit by a human-driven car.

Within two months of the incident, Vogt had resigned, about 24% of its workforce was laid off, and GM asserted more control over the embattled company. Since then, Cruise has hired Marc Whitten as its new CEO, created a chief safety officer position and slowly restarted testing in Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. Cruise, a San Francisco-based startup acquired by GM in 2016, has not received approval from California regulators to relaunch operations there. 

Cruise unveiled the Origin in January 2020. It was the product of a multi-year collaboration with parent company GM and investor Honda that was designed for a ridesharing service. Cruise, and the nascent autonomous vehicle industry, was in a rosier, more ambitious place back then. The industry was beginning to consolidate and aggressive timelines for commercial driverless operations had slipped. But automakers and tech companies were still investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the effort. 

The effort to commercialize autonomous vehicle technology, and specifically robotaxis, has proven to be far costlier and time-consuming than many companies expected. Even after eliminating jobs and slashing costs, Cruise is still losing hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter. 

This article originally published at 3:30 a.m. PT and has been updated to include Kyle Vogt’s comments.

Ex-Blue Origin leaders want to mine the moon

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Image Credits: TechCrunch

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. Happy Monday, everyone!

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Story of the week

With its incredible mass and lift, SpaceX’s Starship is already transforming mission planning. Case in point: Voyager & Airbus will launch their private space station Starlab on Starship — in a single mission.

The two companies announced the launch deal last week, though neither party disclosed the financial terms. In some ways, it isn’t much of a surprise: Starship is the only heavy-lift rocket under development that will be capable of accommodating the station’s eight-meter-diameter in one go. But it’s nevertheless a welcome sign of healthy development, both for Starlab and Starship.

Voyager Airbus Starlab
Voyager/Airbus Starlab. Image Credits: Starlab Space LLC

Scoop of the week

I uncovered more details about a secretive moon startup headed by ex-Blue Origin leaders. Interlune, a startup that’s been around for at least three years but has made almost zero public announcements about its tech, raised $15.5 million in new funding and aims to close another $2 million. It’s headed by Rob Meyerson, an aerospace executive and investor who was president of Blue Origin for 15 years.

What little is known of Interlune’s tech mostly comes from an abstract of a small SBIR the startup was awarded last year from the National Science Foundation. Under that award, the company said it will aim to “develop a core enabling technology for lunar in situ resource utilization: the ability to sort ‘moon dirt’ (lunar regolith) by particle size.”

“By enabling raw lunar regolith to be sorted into multiple streams by particle size, the technology will provide appropriate feedstocks for lunar oxygen extraction systems, lunar 3-dimensional printers, and other applications,” the abstract says.

NASAs Artemis I Moon rocket sits at Launch Pad Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center
NASA’s Artemis I Moon rocket sits at Launch Pad Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 15, 2022. NASA is aiming for June 18 for the beginning of the next wet dress rehearsal test of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) at the Kennedy Space Center, with tanking operations on June 20. (Photo by EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images)

Launch highlights

SpaceX teamed up with Northrop Grumman to deliver more than 8,000 pounds of cargo, fresh food and scientific experiments to astronauts on the International Space Station.

The NG-20 resupply mission took off from the Space Force’s Cape Canaveral in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 30 and arrived at the ISS on February 1.

Northrop has been launching Cygnus to the ISS for resupply missions using its own Antares rocket since 2013, with the exception of just two missions that used a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5. But Northrop retired that version of Antares last year, and the next version — an all-American launch vehicle called Antares 330, which it is developing with Firefly Aerospace — will not be ready to fly until around mid-2025.

Both Northrop and SpaceX have multibillion-dollar contracts with NASA to deliver cargo resupply missions to the ISS. Under its contract, SpaceX uses its Dragon capsule; this is the first time the company flew a Cygnus.

Rewatch the launch here:



What we’re reading

Last week, I had a great time diving into this story predicting SpaceX’s 2024 revenue authored by Payload co-founder Mo Islam and Jack Kuhr, Payload’s research director.

The TL;DR is that Payload is projecting SpaceX’s revenue will climb from $8.7 billion in 2023 to $13.3 billion in 2024, chiefly due to higher demand for Falcon 9 launches and more Starlink customers. But there’s tons more discussion on SpaceX’s business at the link above, and it’s worth checking out.

This week in space history

On February 5, 1971, Alan Shepard became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon. Ad astra!

Alan Shepard on the moon NASA
Image Credits: NASA

blue origin new glenn

Ahead of testing, Blue Origin raises New Glenn on the launch pad for first time

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blue origin new glenn

Image Credits: Blue Origin (opens in a new window)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin raised a test version of its massive orbital rocket on its launch pad for the first time Wednesday, inaugurating the start of a major test campaign ahead of the first launch later this year.

The test version of the rocket is all Blue Origin hardware, but not all of it will necessarily end up going to space. The second stage and the payload fairing that sits at the top of the vehicle are both stand-ins during testing; the rocket also doesn’t have any BE-4 engines, as they’re not needed for the upcoming suite of tests. Those engines, which are also made by Blue Origin, are undergoing their own test campaign at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the company’s facilities in West Texas.

The upcoming tests with this launch vehicle will let teams practice vehicle integration and transportation to and from the launch pad, and what’s called an integrated tanking test. For that test, the booster will be fueled with liquid nitrogen (which is not used during an actual launch) to verify that the fluid systems function properly. Tests are anticipated to take at least a week, Blue Origin CEO David Limp said on LinkedIn.

Once the tests are complete, the vehicle will return to Blue’s massive garage at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, where engineers will outfit the reusable first stage with seven BE-4 engines and mate it with a flight-ready second stage. (The BE-4 engines gained flight heritage earlier this year, when they powered United Launch Alliance’s first Vulcan Centaur rocket launch.)

New Glenn rolling to the launch pad.
New Glenn rolling to the launch pad. Image Credits: Blue Origin

Limp expressed confidence that the vehicle will meet its target launch date by the end of this year: “Manufacturing continues to make progress with multiple boosters, fairings, and second stages in our factory,” he said. “We’re looking forward to bringing this heavy-lift capacity to our customers later this year.”

Bringing the new vehicle to market will mark a new chapter for the 24-year-old company. The company is best known for conducting space tourism flights with its suborbital rocket, New Shepard. That vehicle, which is 60 feet tall, only flies to around 66 miles — above what many consider to be the boundary of space, but far short of reaching orbital space.

New Glenn is considerably more powerful. The 320-foot-tall launch vehicle is Blue Origin’s first heavy-lift rocket, designed to launch more than 45 tons of payload to low Earth orbit. The reusable first stage will land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, similar to how SpaceX recovers its boosters, and is designed to fly for at least 25 missions.

The vehicle has already been tapped by multiple customers — the first launch will carry a pair of NASA spacecraft called ESCAPADE, which have Mars as their ultimate destination. Amazon, Bezos’ other company, also awarded New Glenn billions for up to 27 launches for its forthcoming Project Kuiper satellite internet constellation. Blue Origin has also scored launches for telecom providers Telecast and Eutelsat for later this decade.