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Innovation Jeff Bezos Marketing

Amazon's Jeff Bezos reveals satellite operator Eutelsat as the first paying customer for his New Glenn rocket

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By Laurie Fullerton, Freelance Writer

March 7, 2017 | 6 min read

Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, has signed Eutelsat Communications SA as its first customer for satellite launch services, Bezos announced today (March 7). Bezos and the chairman of this week’s Satellite 2017 conference, Jeffrey Hill, brought the Paris-based satellite operator’s CEO, Rodolphe Belmer, on stage as a surprise guest during today’s keynote chat, according to an article today in Geekwire.

Blue Origin is developing a reusable orbital rocket called New Glenn that is expected to debut before the end of the decade.

With the high costs and high stakes of the satellite launch industry, today's deal bodes well for other companies who might consider launching with Bezos.

"We couldn't hope for a better first partner," Bezos said during a keynote address at the Satellite 2017 conference.

The target date for the first launch is around 2021, Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer said.

New Glenn is a follow-up program to Blue Origin's suborbital New Shepard launch system, a rocket and capsule designed to fly payloads and passengers to about 62 miles above the planet.

Test flights with onboard crew members are expected to begin this year. Blue Origin has not yet set a price for rides.

According to a release, Eutelsat is today one of the world’s biggest satellite operators, and with New Glenn slated to begin flying by 2020, Bezos stressed the importance of “true operational reusability” in spacecraft, saying that "we need to get to a place ultimately that is much more like commercial airliners,” he said.

Business Insider reports that Bezos and others are considering new industries on the moon. Reportedly, Bezos is seeking a dialogue with NASA and President Trump's administration about a plan to permanently colonize the moon. In a seven page document that he is circulation at the highest levels, he calls for a spacecraft called "Blue Moon" to make Amazon.com-like package deliveries to the moon in 2020 to be followed by crewed landings.

"It is time for America to return to the Moon — this time to stay," he told Christian Davenport of The Washington Post. "A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this."

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Innovation Jeff Bezos Marketing

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