US Space Force: Blue Origin is still expected to undertake key satellite launch missions

Golden Ten Data, June 5 — The U.S. Space Force’s procurement division stated that despite the launchpad explosion last week, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin remains eligible to compete, thus bidding alongside Elon Musk’s SpaceX for the highly lucrative U.S. military space launch projects. The U.S. Space Force noted that this Blue Origin incident did not occur during an actual launch, but was part of a final pre-launch ignition test. Since the explosion did not happen during a certification flight, the agency said this will not result in Blue Origin being excluded from the certification process, and the company can still participate in bidding for the Pentagon’s "National Security Space Launch Program" Phase Three (“Lane 2”) contracts.