The Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin rocket business would like additional international business and including launch facilities, additional to its existing sites in Texas, Florida and Alabama.

Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith, in an interview with the FT, said they were also looking for non-US acquisitions in manufacturing and software in order to scale up its rocket launch business.

“We’re looking for anything we can do to acquire, to scale up to better serve our customers,” Smith said. “It’s not a function of size — rather how much it accelerates our road map of what we’re trying to get done.”

Smith is on record as saying that Blue Origin is already earning cash (“millions of dollars”) from NASA contracts and other launch orders.

It is also doing well from its sub-orbital tourist flights into near-space having carries out 23 missions and 31 passengers into the heavens.

One of those additional key tasks is to launch Bezos’s Project Kuiper broadband satellite constellation for at least 12 rocket launches over a 5-year period. Blue Origin’s New Glenn version is likely to make its debut flight during 2024.

“I think there’s great opportunity in Europe,” Smith said. “It’s far less clear to us how to actually sell space services in Europe than it is in the United States.”

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4. Ariane 6 launch campaign underway
5. Virgin Galactic in stock split
6. Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
7. AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
8. Optimism under threat at SES
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Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Satellite

Tags: Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos