Blue Origin LLC is the name of Jeff Bezos' space flight company. The name refers to the Earth, as the blue origin of humanity, seen from space.
Founded in the year 2000 in Kent, WA, Blue Origin's stated goal is to increase access to space via the development of reusable boosters and spacecraft. As of 2021, the company has achieved spaceflight above the Karman Line via its New Shepherd vehicle. This vehicle is a single stage booster with a six-seat crew capsule atop it, designed to push the capsule into a minimal spaceflight trajectory akin to the Mercury program flights of early US spaceflight history. After releasing the capsule to coast to apogee above the line, the booster extends control surfaces and, between those and the increased drag due to the loss of streamlining from the capsule, slows and begins to fall back to earth. The booster guides itself back to a designated landing site - a pad adjacent to the launch site - and relights its engine to provide terminal braking from a hypersonic descent profile, landing on legs on the pad for reuse. The capsule descends via parachute, with a last-second cold-gas thruster to reduce impact enough to prevent damage to the capsule or excessive discomfort for the passengers. Both the booster and the capsule are reusable. The capsule also has a replaceable 'crush skirt' on the bottom to absorb excess energy in case the landing is harder than intended.
New Shepherd is being used for high-dollar spaceflight tourism at present. It uses a single BE-3 engine, a Blue Origin-designed and built LH/LOX (liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen) engine. Blue Origin is currently building the BE-4, a much larger staged combustion engine, which is initially being sold to United Launch Alliance to power the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle, which will replace the venerable Atlas V. ULA has been using Russian engines for decades, and this will be a return to domestically-produced engines for their launch fleet. With the monies from this contract, Blue Origin has developed the engine and is expanding production; the engine is planned to be used on their own next launch vehicle the New Glenn (yes, the names refer to Mercury astronauts). The New Glenn will be a much larger vehicle, intended to be capable of heavy orbital launch as well as operations beyond earth orbit.
Although its corporate headquarters remains in Kent WA, Blue Origin operates a testing and launch facility in Van Horn, TX which is where New Shepherd launches from and all Blue Origin engines are currently test fired. They are completing an engine test stand near Huntsville AL for the ULA deliveries and east coast operations.
The first manned flight of New Shepherd was in 2021, and carried Jeff Bezos and three other passengers above the Karman Line.