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.

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.

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 refuel Starship in orbit to launch them on their way.

Lets be generous and assume 1 ring and that they can be as little as 100,000 miles apart you need 5000. Assume twice as massive as Starlink V3 and each Starship launches 25 (instead of 50 Starlink V3) you need 200 launches not counting fuelling ones. Assume 10 tanker launches per Starship you are up to 2200 launches to do so. That doesn't count the ones in orbit around Mars which need even bigger solar panels due to the greater distance.

Falcon 9 failure rate under .5% over at least 690 launches. New Glenn failure rate 66.6% as only one flight was a full success of 3. That doesn't include the test explosion devastating their launch site and putting off their next launch till the middle of next year (that is my estimate as theirs is clearly false).

BO is almost 26 years old and those 3 flights are their only orbital launch attempts.

SpaceX is only 24 years old and made their first orbital launch attempt about 3 and a half years later. Their first success was 6 years after founding.

If you think about their total accomplishments and remember the that BO had an extra 2 years and more money than SpaceX had in those early days you might see why space enthusiasts even if they despise Musk (as I do) still rate SpaceX more highly. They are the ones driving the industry forward. B.O.? They talk about it and use lawsuits to slow down SpaceX and in general be a dog in the manger.

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

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

Flight 1 minimal payload not deployed (or planned to be deployed. Booster exploded in upper atmosphere. Limited success.

Flight 2 full success

Flight 3 cargo deployed in wrong orbit and deorbited, partial reuse of flight 2 booster (all engines replaced) Failure due to loss of payload

During an engine test in preparation for flight 4 the booster exploded wrecking the launch site.

So a 1 in 3 success rate and a destroyed launch site that won't launch again this year. My best guess is the middle of next year.

New Glenn: Flight 1 carried an absolute minimal cargo to orbit, had no plan to deploy it. Planned booster landing prevented by the booster exploding in the upper atmosphere. Flight 2: Successful flight, deployed cargo and landed booster. Flight 3: deployed cargo in wrong orbit (too low and they came down) booster landed, booster was the same one from flight 2 but with all new engines.

So one full success between 3 flights. Not so good.

While preping for Flight 4 it exploded due to valve issues. Launch site inoperable. B.O. claims flight 4 will be by year end. I don't believe them.

Interesting how you think it takes TWO trained marines to beat up one Liberal celebrity. How about one marine beating on Mayor Trumpsky and his 3 sons?

I'm always amazed when those idiotic incompetent Democrats steal elections run by the Republican right under their noses without enough evidence left behind for a lawsuit proving it before a Republican appointed judge. Almost like they are STILL smarter and more talented than the Republicans and therefore more capable of running the country.

How do you get from "no more Starlink launches on Falcon 9 in Florida" to turning down customers? Starlink IS part of SpaceX. What customer is being turned down? If Amazon Leo were to say "hey SpaceX we are WAY behind on our launches can you do a few dozen launches on Falcon 9 from Florida for us", SpaceX would do them (for a price of course). They have before.

So you think that it would take two trained marines to beat "the living shit" out of ONE Liberal who is an untrained in hand to hand combat celebrity? You seem to have a low opinion of trained marines.

That's a relief. Hopefully neither left lawyer offspring to carry on the family scam.

Jeffery Vernon Merkey? Surely by now his brilliance has made him rich enough to finally make this case a winner.

For me it is the solvent that tears it apart.