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NASA Selects Blue Origin As Mars Telecommunications Network Provider (nasa.gov) 64

Posted by BeauHD from the ET-phone-home dept.
NASA has awarded Blue Origin a contract worth up to $700 million to build and operate a dedicated Mars telecommunications network for current and future missions to the Red Planet. Blue Origin is expected to deliver the spacecraft by the end of 2028, with the network targeted to become operational by 2030. From a press release: Blue Origin will design, develop, integrate, launch, and operate the network as a part of the agency's broader space communications and navigation infrastructure. The architecture will consist of a high-performance telecommunications spacecraft orbiting Mars, transmitting science data, imagery, navigation information, and critical mission communications for spacecraft operating on and around the planet.

The award marks a milestone in NASA's strategy to expand communications and navigation services beyond Earth and the Moon, establishing the foundation for sustained exploration of Mars in the coming decades.
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NASA Selects Blue Origin As Mars Telecommunications Network Provider More

NASA Selects Blue Origin As Mars Telecommunications Network Provider

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  • Merit? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Grady Martin ( 4197307 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2026 @03:46AM (#66318918)

    This choice seems questionable. Even with my limited knowledge of the industry, I know that Blue Origin lags behind. Their crowning achievement thus far is a ten-minute, sub-orbital Katy Perry. [wikipedia.org]

    I tracked down the official contract, [sam.gov] but my legalese is a little rusty. Can anyone find the non-delivery clause?

    • I'm betting they'll contract out to SpaceX for the launching to Mars. It makes sense to give a networking contract to the company adjacent to Amazon.

      I'll be honest, I'm a little jealous. Setting up interplanetary networks would be a really fun project.

      • Re: Merit? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2026 @05:16AM (#66318958)

        Blue origin is kind of the exact opposite of SpaceX -- very top heavy, highly bureaucratic, little to no interest in efficiency, optimization, or cost reduction, no desire to get anything done in a timely manner. While they did land a booster, which is no small feat of engineering, it's only a third of what makes it economically viable: They need to produce the boosters at scale and turn them around quickly after each use, and for that to make any sense they would also need to find or create an economic demand to meet that supply. Space tourism just won't cut it unless you can get the cost much lower and do more than a ten minute suborbital microgravity flight. For the money, tourists can do way better than that without even passing the karman line, let alone going suborbital or even orbital.

        Short of that, they're going to run into exactly the same problems that NASA, the ESA, and a host of others pointed at when pooh-poohing Elon for wanting to do it (and for whatever reason, the ESA is now trying to chase after Falcon 9, will manage to replicate it 5 years after it's already obsolete, only to find out at that time that they won't be able to come anywhere close to replicating SpaceX's operational costs or launch cadence.)

        • TBH, as much respect I have for the SpaceX engineers, Blue are still in the early days of operation. It took SpaceX months to turn around the first re-flown booster. I think Blue managed it quicker!

          Give them the time SpaceX had and they'll get there.

          • Blue origin is older than SpaceX and were better funded at the beginning. The first booster SpaceX landed was never reused.

            Remember also that around 2018 or so, blue origin poached many SpaceX engineers with the promise of better compensation (which is an interesting story in itself, the short version is: they were promised shares that went up in smoke, they ended up with much worse compensation.) They likely picked up some of that knowledge that way. But it's moot: The problem at blue origin isn't engineer

            • Yes, Blue is older. But I was referring to early days of operation to orbit, and landing/relaunching. And SpaceX put their first landed booster on display in Hawthorne. A fitting place for it.

              anyway...

        • Blue origin is kind of the exact opposite of SpaceX -- very top heavy, highly bureaucratic,

          .

          I lost all faith in them (Blue Origin) when they announced that to handle development issues with New Glenn they were hiring more executives.

      • I'm betting they'll contract out to SpaceX for the launching to Mars. It makes sense to give a networking contract to the company adjacent to Amazon.

        They have New Glenn Rockets. Hard to imagine they would use Spacex When they already have a livery.

        • I think GP means they fail to deliver on time or on specification, so contract goes to SpaceX, and this wouldn't be the first time exactly that has happened. SpaceX is already the lower cost, more reliable choice by a very wide margin; the reason the others get the contracts is to more or less throw them a bone and ensure there are future options available.

          • I think GP means they fail to deliver on time or on specification, so contract goes to SpaceX, and this wouldn't be the first time exactly that has happened. SpaceX is already the lower cost, more reliable choice by a very wide margin; the reason the others get the contracts is to more or less throw them a bone and ensure there are future options available.

            Right. But I don't think it is throwing a bone. The New Glenn is becoming a good rocket, and is there a good reason to not use New Glenn for rocketry? The recent incident of it blowing up is no different than a Falcon 9 blowing up on the launchpad 10 years ago. New rockets, new problems.

            And it is for a darn good reason to have multiple providers. As an example, at one time, Boeing was a respected company that created good products. Now after becoming a bean counter company, they are rapidly becoming an

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      As much as it pains me to say it, I don't think Blue Origin is that far behind. They just have a different methodology to SpaceX. Instead of failing fast and often while they iterate, Blue Origin does a lot of testing and then a successful launch. So it's very hard to say exactly where they are in comparison to SpaceX, but we will find out in the next few years when they are supposed to deliver the first crewed lunar lander to NASA.

      • Sorry, but none of their new glen launches was without problems, especially the last one, which obliterated their complete launchpad. (Previous one did lift off and flew great but didn't land properly). So in that regard their testflights weren't much better as SpaceX.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Sure, but they make big leaps every time they launch. It's not incremental like SpaceX, so it's hard to say how they compare.

          • Not really. The reason SpaceX makes constant iterative changes is because it keeps each per-unit cost much lower and much easier to replace, and overall progress goes much faster and lower cost. You're likely unaware that blue origin is in fact the older company that was better funded at the start. SpaceX is and has been leapfrogging blue origin, not the other way around, even though SpaceX is and has been already ahead.

            Starship has enough payload to orbit capacity to carry a dead weight New Glenn to orbit.

        • Sorry, but none of their new glen launches was without problems, especially the last one, which obliterated their complete launchpad. (Previous one did lift off and flew great but didn't land properly). So in that regard their testflights weren't much better as SpaceX.

          Most of the fans forgot about the rapid unplanned disassembly of the vaunted Falcon 9 on the launchpad in 2016. There will always be unplanned events as the rocket makers work their learning curve.

          • Most of the fans forgot about the rapid unplanned disassembly of the vaunted Falcon 9 on the launchpad in 2016. There will always be unplanned events as the rocket makers work their learning curve.

            I believe there's more to this than you're aware. The biggest thing is likely the fact that SpaceX already had multiple other rockets ready to replace it. Blue origin does not. Now imagine the cost of a one-off car vs a mass produced car. New Glenn is more akin to the former, falcon 9 the latter.

            That particular falcon 9 was also the first to use what's basically (but not quite) supercooled fuel in order to hold more fuel overall. The RUD was related to that. The concept worked by the way, the very next falc

            • It's not really an apples to apples comparison. You wonder why SpaceX doesn't treat a lost rocket as a big deal where everybody else does. Well, this is why. Same reason you think starship is some sort of joke or vanity project: You're expecting the very first rocket to be fully developed and production ready with all planned features implemented. SpaceX does not.

              All apologies if I insulted a fan.

        • Sorry, but none of their new glen launches was without problems, especially the last one, which obliterated their complete launchpad.

          Inaccurate, the explosion that devastated their launch site was failed TEST not a launch failure.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

        As much as it pains me to say it, I don't think Blue Origin is that far behind. They just have a different methodology to SpaceX. Instead of failing fast and often while they iterate, Blue Origin does a lot of testing and then a successful launch. So it's very hard to say exactly where they are in comparison to SpaceX, but we will find out in the next few years when they are supposed to deliver the first crewed lunar lander to NASA.

        Correct, they aren't that far behind. We have armchair engineers in here claiming that BO's big achievement is Launching a suborbital flight with Pop Stars, that Bezos paid baksheesh to the orange shitgibbon, when they've already put satellites into orbit on New Glenn rockets.

        This is how the system is supposed to run, with multiple vendors. BO is on their learning curve.

    • This choice seems questionable. Even with my limited knowledge of the industry, I know that Blue Origin lags behind.

      But. the question arises, are we to only provide contracts to some unquestioned leader, which on Slashdot usually means a Spacex monoculture. NASA has a mission to commercialize space with multiple companies doing the reduced to practice grunt work.

      Their crowning achievement thus far is a ten-minute, sub-orbital Katy Perry. [wikipedia.org]

      Have you forgotten about the New Glenn launches? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Lot's of information on launches.

      Seriously, acting like the pop culture all female launch is the pinnacle kinda ignores New Glenn, don't you think?

      On the downside, they had

    • It's competition. Keeps everyone on their toes. So now you have Boeing, SpaceX and Blue Origin all competing for contracts. Having one vendor is how you get Boeing's Starliner budget blowing up by 50% and nine years overdue. Why execute when the government will just keep paying you money as there's nowhere else to go? Keep in mind, most of the companies that built the old space capsules, and the space shuttle, are all part of Boeing now.

      • Re: Competition (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2026 @04:34PM (#66319852) Homepage
        Uhh, Boeing and SpaceX both got the contract to develop a human capable capsule, but Boeing got $4.2 billion and SpaceX got $2.6 billion. Crew dragon's first commercial flight was in 2020, Starliner still hasn't flown a commercial flight, and might even be cancelled alltogether, as ut was meant for ISS.
  • Blue Origin has been making progress. They now have a heavy lift rocket in operation.

    The launch sequence is unexpectedly beautiful [youtube.com].

  • Starlink (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2026 @04:43AM (#66318942) Homepage
    And SpaceX will probably launch their own network too, probably even before Blue Origin has its craft ready. As SpaceX its target is also Mars, and they need to communicate with their Starships and robots, Starlink will be their comms.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Don't care. I'll buy my Mars service plan from Consumer Cellular.

      Those simple flip phones with the oversized buttons are easier to operate in space suits.

    • I think so too. Soon they will have more Starships than they know what to do with. Once orbital re-fuelling is nailed you can bet they'll chuck one in the moons direction, probably before any official Artemis mission. After that their target will be Mars, they'll probably send multiple ships (some might dump starlinks in LMO before landing attempt) in the next window...maybe not next as that's in a few months...but you never know.
    • SpaceX have currently diverted everything to Moon missions, and building a Moon base. Mars is currently a back-burner project for the time being. They will be building a Lunar Starlink too, and linking back to the Starlink constellation over Earth by laser.

      I really can't see SpaceX doing any Mars missions for a few years yet. Once they do, no doubt there will be a Mars Starlink too. How that links home will be interesting, though. Maybe a (or several?) Heliocentric Starlink Belt midway between Earth

      • How that links home will be interesting, though. Maybe a (or several?) Heliocentric Starlink Belt midway between Earth and Mars?

        Not a chance. That would be a ellipse on the order of 500 million miles in circumferance. Figure out how far apart you can have them then calculate the number of satellites you need. Remember the satellites need to be larger and heavier as there is less sunlight out there and they need more solar panels. They also need more power to broadcast to Earth or Mars as at best they will be more than 30 million miles from both. So again more solar panels. Gets expensive fast especially since you'd need to ref

        • 2200 is a fifth of SpaceX's expected launch cadence per year.

          Yes, it's likely impractical, but so was landing a 2nd stage of a rocket, one upon a time... Never say never. Just, not likely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      That's fine, competition is good. Though it's only a duopoly so it's not exactly ideal, but if it means communications with Mars gets competitive then it can only be a good thing.

  • Blue Origin a company that can barely get a satellite into low Earth orbit gets the contract. The most charitable explanation is political influence in Washington. Going back to Tesla being excluded from that EV summit in Washington.

    • Show your math on why you believe New Glenn can't go past LEO. This isn't Electron, it's a heavy lift rocket that should easily be able to deliver something like 15,000 lbs to Mars orbit.

    • Blue Origin a company that can barely get a satellite into low Earth orbit gets the contract. The most charitable explanation is political influence in Washington. Going back to Tesla being excluded from that EV summit in Washington.

      Sorry but Blue Origin has not yet deployed a satellite from New Glenn to LEO. They did send a pair to Mars however (ESCAPADE). Their one fully successful New Glenn flight to date.

  • can make the network before the rest of us join him.
  • The press release says Blue Origin "will design, develop, integrate, launch, and operate the network". Who actually owns it, though? For $700 million, I certainly hope it is the U.S. taxpayer. I'd contrast it to NASA's Deep Space Network, which is infrastructure with unique capabilities that is owned by NASA and operated by JPL. (JPL is, in turn, operated by CalTech, but is so enmeshed with NASA it's hard to see as a separate entity.)
  • of the armchair hemorrhoid creators is impressive in this comment section. Blue Origin has indeed made orbit. They have put satellites in orbit. As to why they got the job, they competed and won. They'll be contacting out the actual satellites to a sub vendor. Given the booster requirements, the mission will require more power than Falcon Heavy, but less than Starship. The engineering and economic factors won the contract, not a buch of whiners opinions. And yes, they blew up their pad, as every single rock
    • Didn't SpaceX get a NASA contract before Falcon 1 successfully made orbit? (Albeit dependant on them actually making orbit on the next launch, which they did). I might be misremembering that, though. But they certainly got the contract when they were still very new to everything.

  • Ignoring launch capabilities ... (Score:3)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2026 @12:14PM (#66319411)

    NASA has awarded Blue Origin a contract worth up to $700 million to build and operate a dedicated Mars telecommunications network ...

    What experience does Blue Origin have with building and operating a space telecommunications network? Any?

  • Perhaps the simple explanation (Score:3)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Wednesday September 02, 2026 @02:25PM (#66319591)

    There is the possibility that Blue Origin simply underbid everyone else.

    Anyone who has worked for the US Government or the Military knows all too well the vendor
    with the highest quality is rarely selected. Rather, the vendor with the bare minimum quality
    needed to get the job done who is also the cheapest is the one who will win the contract.

    There is also the possibility that NASA wants to diversify its vendors so as not to become
    too reliant upon a single one.

    It's easier to diversify from the get-go to avoid putting all your eggs into one basket so to speak.

    • There is the possibility that Blue Origin simply underbid everyone else.

      It's more simple. The government in general and NASA specifically have a policy of spreading the launches around to encourage competition. They will give the majority to the low bidder but they will pay higher bidders to launch a percentage just to be sure that the failure of one company doesn't lock them out of space. This is one of those contracts.

  • Can you hear me now!

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