Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is putting its space tourism program on hold for “no less than two years” as it shifts its full attention and resources toward upcoming missions to the moon, the company announced Friday.
The pause temporarily stops a service Blue Origin has operated for the past five years, flying passengers beyond the Kármán line, widely recognized as the boundary of space.
The announcement comes just weeks before the expected third launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy-lift rocket, currently targeted for late February. The company had previously indicated that the third New Glenn flight could carry its robotic lunar lander toward the moon, but the spacecraft is still undergoing testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.
Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has urged NASA to accelerate its timeline for sending astronauts back to the moon before the end of his second term. That push has opened more opportunities for companies beyond SpaceX to compete for lunar-related contracts and missions.
Blue Origin said the decision is tied directly to that national objective.
“The decision reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to the nation’s goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence,” the company said in its statement.
Blue Origin first flew its New Shepard rocket more than a decade ago, marking a major milestone as one of the earliest rockets to reach space and land safely back on Earth. However, unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9, New Shepard was never designed to reach orbit, which has limited its role mainly to suborbital missions.
Those flights have supported space tourism, giving passengers roughly four minutes of weightlessness, as well as scientific research launches.
According to Blue Origin, New Shepard has completed 38 flights, carried 98 people to space, and delivered more than 200 scientific and research payloads.
This isn’t the first time the program has been grounded. In 2022, Blue Origin paused New Shepard operations after a booster failure caused an explosion mid-flight. No crew was onboard, and the capsule successfully separated and landed safely. The rocket remained out of service until late 2023 while the company investigated the cause and implemented fixes.
