Blue Origin has a secret project named “Jarvis” to compete with SpaceX

At the end of May, a rumor about Blue Origin’s large New Glenn rocket erupted on several social media sites frequented by space flight enthusiasts.

Blue Origin was rumored to be changing the main structural material of its new rocket from an aluminum alloy to stainless steel. The social media posts generated considerable interest as they implied the company would be mimicking a competitor in its choice of materials – SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy ships are mostly made from stainless steel. Moreover, such a change also heralded further delays in New Glenn’s development program, which was already years behind schedule.

At the time, I checked with a source and found the the rumor is false. New Glenn did not trade his first stage for stainless steel.

However, after subsequent reporting, I discovered a kernel of truth in the stainless steel rocket and Blue Origin rumors. Three sources confirmed to Ars that Blue Origin has started work on a project to develop a fully reusable upper stage for New Glenn, which could potentially use stainless steel propellant tanks.

The main purpose of this change is to reduce the overall cost of launching the New Glenn rocket. The large upper stage of the vehicle, with a diameter of 7 meters and two BE-3U engines, is expensive, and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is looking for ways to make the overall rocket more economical.

“It’s the difference between taking a profit and a loss on New Glenn launches,” said an industry source familiar with the reusable top floor plan.

Jarvis Project

The reusable second stage program appears to have taken inspiration from SpaceX for more than its stainless steel materials. By making New Glenn’s first and second stages fully reusable, Bezos mimics Musk’s ambitious plan to land and reuse both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship top stage.

When Musk officially announced Project Starship in 2016 (then called ITS, or Interplanetary Transportation System), many in the industry were skeptical of his plans to build a massive, reusable launch system. They remained questionable in early 2019, after Musk announced the switch from low-cost carbon fiber to stainless steel for the rocket’s main structure. Although stainless steel is cheaper and withstands atmospheric heating better on re-entry, it is about five times heavier than composites.

Bezos had asked his senior executives about the reusable upper floors, but advisers told him such an approach was unlikely to work, sources said. Bezos also appears to have learned that SpaceX’s “fail-forward” method of rapid prototyping and testing of spacecraft, with few processes and procedures, would be unlikely to be successful.

However, over the past year, Bezos has taken notice of SpaceX launching and landing with its Starship vehicle. This is one of the reasons he decided to initiate a project named “Jarvis” at Blue Origin as part of the reusable second stage program. Sources said Bezos separated parts of the Second Stage development program from the rest of Blue Origin and asked its executives to innovate in an unfettered environment through rigorous management and paperwork processes.

Work moved quickly on the Jarvis Project, apparently named after the character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first tank tests could begin as early as this fall on the stainless steel equipment at the Blue Origin site in Florida, followed by further tests if the approach proves feasible. For now, at least, the company’s plan is to launch New Glenn initially with a non-reusable second stage before moving to the fully reusable upper stage in the mid-2020s. One such fully reusable launch system is now seen as a key to compete with SpaceX to launch large payloads.

It’s not clear how much budget Bezos has allocated to Project Jarvis or whether its managers report directly to Bezos or Bob Smith, the CEO of Blue Origin. Blue Origin vice president of communications Linda Mills did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Other projects

Blue Origin also appears to be focusing more on activities in space beyond rocket launching. Sources said Bezos recently gave the green light to two other major projects, one related to space propulsion and the other focused on developing and demonstrating in situ resource use technologies for the Moon and beyond.

For the resource project, a source said, Blue almost overnight put together perhaps the best space resource team in the industry. The company hired research scientist Vlada Stamenkovic from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lead the team and made several other key hires. The goal of this program is to enable humans to live more sustainably on the Moon and develop resources for the benefit of life on Earth.

Additionally, Blue Origin finalized the hiring of Austin Murnane as senior legal counsel this month. Formerly a lawyer at Latham & Watkins in New York, Murnane has expertise in the legal aspects of space resources. Its track record suggests that Blue Origin can claim that the resources in space belong to no one, and that society can claim resources on the Moon and elsewhere.

In the Fordham International Law Journal, Murnane wrote a 40-page article arguing that for modern prospectors – in the form of commercial space companies – the Moon, asteroids and other bodies in the solar system should be free from all control. earthly. governments or the United Nations and the Outer Space Treaty.

“If the Outer Space Treaty is interpreted as having established the sovereignty of the United Nations in space, it would make this organization the master of all bodies outside the Earth’s atmosphere,” Murnane wrote. . “When you consider the vast multitude of celestial bodies in the Earth’s solar system and further note that there are probably over one hundred billion stars in our galaxy, as well as millions of other galaxies in the galaxy. ‘universe, such a statement is breathtakingly arrogant. “