Thursday, 21 Nov 2024

Blue Origin Losing Top Talent to Rivals

On the heels of losing out on a major NASA contract, Blue Origin is also losing some of its top talent to its rivals.

SpaceX beat out Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin in a bid for NASA’s contract for a lunar lander. NASA had originally wanted to source multiple companies, but went with SpaceX exclusively due to budgetary constraints. Blue Origin appealed the decision, an appeal that was denied by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Blue Origin filed a lawsuit against NASA in hopes of overturning the decision.

According to Gizmodo, however, some of Blue Origin’s top talent are already leaving the company. Nitin Arora, lead engineer for the company’s lunar lander program, has left for SpaceX — an especially bitter blow given Blue Origin’s loss to the company. Lauren Lyons has moved on to become COO at Firefly Aerospace, and former astronaut Jeff Ashby, as well as Steve Bennet, have also left.

Whatever the outcome of Blue Origin’s lawsuit, the company’s bigger issue may be keeping morale up and top talent in-house.