The company has been operating without much publicity

Feb 27, 2010 01:01 GMT  ·  By

Everyone in the space industry knows that the private company Blue Origin is working on a new vertical liftoff and landing rocket, called New Shepard. However, official details of the space vehicle are being kept under wraps as work is progressing. But unofficial sources have published several of the functions and capabilities that the new spacecraft will possess. The project is being financed by Amazon.com Founder Jeff Bezos, so it stands to reason that Blue Origin has no financial troubles. In recent weeks, however, officials at the company have begun to share some of their work with the general public, and with other actors in the business, who are eager to see the design at work, Space reports.

The space vehicle is apparently designed to fly at suborbital altitudes, the Crew Cabin Development Manager and engineer at the company, Gary Lai, says. The rocket will be able to carry three or four astronauts to the edge of space, and the safety of the passengers is the top priority. “If we're famous for anything […] it's for being quiet. One of the reasons is [that] it certainly keeps our marketing and public relations staff small,” the official told the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference. Some 250 suborbital rocket vehicle providers and scientists gathered at the meeting, which took place in Boulder, Colorado, this month.

Lai added that Blue Origin was keen on sharing data with the public, or other companies, only when significant milestones were achieved. He explained that, most likely, the first time the general public would see the new design was when it would be fully operational and ready to fly. In addition to working on their own design, engineers here have also been recently awarded a $3.7-million NASA grant, to develop an all-composite space capsule, and to prepare it for ground-based structural testing. The experts also needed to construct an astronaut escape system, Blue Origin revealed earlier this month.

Under the new White House budget proposal for 2011, NASA's five-year-running Project Constellation would be canceled, and emphasis would be placed on supporting the private space-exploration industry. Under this approach, the space agency would receive some $6 billion to distribute among private companies such as Blue Origin, Orbital Science Corporation and Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX. Therefore, these preliminary funds need to be put to good use, if these companies want to ensure a steady – and also very large – supply of federal money. They will be in charge of transporting US astronauts to the International Space Station beyond September, 2010, when the US retires its aging space-shuttle fleet.