Jeff Bezos might have feel triumphant when he rocket toward theedge of spacelast month , but obviously the same ca n’t be said about other employees at Blue Origin . On Friday , CNBC wasfirst to reportthat over a 12 engineer had left Bezos ’s ship’s company in late weeks , with some go for high - outrank roles at rival spaceflight outfit .
Among the major names that departed Blue Origin were Nitin Arora — the lead engineer on Blue Origin ’s lunar lander program — and Lauren Lyons , whoannouncedearlier this calendar month that she ’d take on a use as the Chief Operating Officer at Firefly Aerospace . Arora , meanwhile , said in aLinkedIn postlast week that he ’d carry a office at SpaceX. Fox Businessconfirmedthat other big exit from the company include ex - NASA cosmonaut Jeff Ashby , along with Steve Bennet , who helped helm theNew Shepard launching course of study .
Bezos ’s party recently lose out to SpaceX for a primal NASA contract to develop a lunar lander for the Artemis program , adecision over which Blue Origin is now suing . before this year , NASA turn back on initial plans to grant multiple companies with ontogenesis contracts for the agency ’s Human Landing System ( HLS ) programme , alternatively awarding $ 2.9 billion in fundingsolely to SpaceX. Before last week ’s lawsuit , Bezos had publish anopen letterto NASA administrator Bill Nelson , aver that his company would cover one million million in toll if they could have a firearm of the contract .
Photo: Mandel Ngan (Getty Images)
A Blue Origin spokesperson told CNBC that , in spite of the turnover , the society was growing at a rapid tread , adding 850 multitude to its headcount in 2020 alone and bring another 650 so far this class . “ We continue to fill out major leaders roles in fabrication , quality , locomotive design , and vehicle design , ” they said . “ It ’s a team we ’re building and we have great talent . ”
Still , these high - visibility departures are a in force monitor that thebusiness of spacecan be a hard one to break into , even for the billionaire founder of Amazon . We saw as muchlate last yearwhen Blue Origins primary operating officer exited the company , on the heels ofmultiplemissed government contracts and aflurryofdevelopmentdelays . Maybe if Bezos put more effort into holding the company together and less into hiscowboy cosplay , Blue Origin would be in better form than it is today .
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