Amazon boss Bezos’s Blue Origin to buy asteroid mining company Honeybee Robotics

Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’s aerospace company Blue Origin is to acquire a robotic asteroid mining startup called Honeybee Robotics.

Honeybee Robotics has operations in Longmont, Colorado and Altadena, California, and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Origin, headquartered in Kent, Washington.

The deal between Honeybee’s parent organization, Ensign-Bickford Industries, and Blue Origin is expected to close in mid-February.

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

Since 1983, Honeybee Robotics has delivered more than 1,000 advanced projects to government and industrial customers in the spacecraft, planetary exploration, defense robotics, medical devices, mining, oil and gas, and utility infrastructure sectors.

Its innovative, reliable, and literally groundbreaking robotic systems operate throughout space: in commercial launch vehicles and satellites and doing innovative work on the Moon, Mars, and Titan.

Honeybee’s extensive experience in planetary robotics and mechanisms, drills, motors, actuators, drive electronics, and specialized space mechanisms is complementary to Blue Origin’s system capability’s goal of making space flight routine, and vision of opening space resources to benefit Earth.

Kiel Davis, president of Honeybee Robotics, says: “We’ve been building Honeybee’s capabilities and brand for almost forty years.

“Joining Blue Origin is a major step forward for us. We thank the entire EBI family for their support over the last four and a half years.

“With Blue Origin we look forward to further expanding our capacity to meet the most exciting challenges in next-generation space transportation, space mobility, space destinations, and planetary science and exploration.”

Honeybee’s current business will continue to operate “business as usual” with no notable changes to its brand, leaders, customer commitments, products, services or processes.

Over time, the combined capabilities of Honeybee and Blue Origin will create new opportunities, efficiencies, and innovations as they work together to develop space to benefit Earth.

Brent Sherwood, senior vice president of Advanced Development Programs for Blue Origin, says: “We’re beyond excited to welcome Honeybee Robotics to our team.

“We know Honeybee’s leadership. We value the company’s brand, talent, unique expertise, and product lines. And we know that together we will make bold things possible.”