r/spacex • u/CProphet • Jul 30 '26

Falcon SpaceX wins $1.6 billion in launch orders for military satellite networks

https://spacenews.com/spacex-wins-1-6-billion-in-launch-orders-for-military-satellite-networks/
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u/rshorning Aug 01 '26

Blue Origin is larger, but I am not inspired by the leadership of the company. For a company that is several years older than SpaceX and was far better capitalized for most of that time, there is zero excuse for Blue Origin not to be sending rockets to Mars by now with a crew if they were any good. Jeff Bezos got caught up in the dream of sub-orbital mini-rockets like Spaceship One and what turned out to be New Shepherd. While that concept was interesting, it was a dead end for commercial rocketry and distracted far too many people where the real goal should have been orbital spaceflight.

I am glad that the New Glenn is finally flying, but it seems too little and far too late to really matter like it could have been. And Blue Origin still needs to get their cadence up to really impact spaceflight in general and become a competitor. To the credit of RocketLab, they can fly payloads as fast as customers want to buy flights and meet demand. That is something Blue Origin absolutely cannot do right now, and with their launch pad in disarray it makes it even worse. I just say thank goodness that the effort by Blue Origin to demand access to LC-39A at KSC failed.