Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin lands a Pentagon contract to design nuclear-powered spacecraft

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The Pentagon has awarded Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' aerospace company, a $2.5 million contract.

Blue Origin will design concepts for a nuclear-powered spacecraft.

It won a contract for the craft alongside Lockheed Martin and General Atomics.

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The Pentagon on Monday awarded Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos, a $2.5 million contract to design a nuclear-powered spacecraft.

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) agency also chose Lockheed Martin and General Atomics for the first phase of a program to design and build the spacecraft, it said in a statement.

Lockheed Martin got a $2.9 million contract to design a craft for the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program, and General Atomics a $22.2 million one to design a small nuclear reactor to power a rocket, CNBC reported.

DARPA wants to test nuclear thermal propulsion technology, which uses a nuclear reactor in a rocket to heat up the fuel and propel the craft beyond low Earth orbit.

Rockets are usually powered by chemical or electrical-based systems. The agency said both have "drawbacks" and that nuclear propulsion tech could have benefits of both: the power of chemical-based and the efficiency of electrical-based.

The agency said in the statement it wanted to try a nuclear-powered spacecraft in orbit in 2025.

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Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics "have demonstrated capabilities to develop and deploy advanced reactor, propulsion, and spacecraft systems," said Maj Nathan Greiner, DRACO program manager.

The first phase of DRACO will last 18 months.

"Blue Origin is excited to support DARPA in maturing spacecraft concepts for this important technology area," said Brent Sherwood, the company's senior vice president of Advanced Development Programs, in a statement to Insider.

This is one of many contracts Blue Origin has landed since being founded by Amazon CEO Bezos in 2000. The space venture, which wants to revolutionize space travel and colonize the solar system, was awarded three NASA contracts in 2020, including one to carry out missions and satellite launches with its New Glenn rocket.

heliumargon on April 13rd, 2021 at 12:40 UTC »

This all makes sense if you're familiar with Huntsville, AL. Blue Origin opened a new office/factory last year, it's a couple blocks from General Atomics, 10 minutes from Marshall and soon-to-be Space Force HQ, and 30 minutes from ULA.

Zenoceros on April 13rd, 2021 at 12:35 UTC »

The Pentagon has awarded Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' aerospace company, a $2.5 million contract.

What does $2.5 million get you in the spacecraft business? A drawing?

ferrel_hadley on April 13rd, 2021 at 10:55 UTC »

The first phase of the program will last 18 months and will focus on General Atomics’ reactor and propulsion subsystem concepts. In the second phase, Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin will independently develop spacecraft concept designs.

https://spacenews.com/darpa-selects-blue-origin-lockheed-martin-to-develop-spacecraft-for-nuclear-propulsion-demo/

Its about $2.2 million to compete with Lockheed Martin for a reactor that General Atomics will get $22 million to design.

Its really small money for this kind of thing, even proof of concept stage.

How much office space and how many engineers plus HR, IT infrastructure and so on can you get for that kind of money. I am guessing its going to be a very small light vehicle to begin with. The actual detailed design will need to be a lot more money. Fabrication will not be cheap either.