This is CBS. I'm The World. I'm John Batchel, and behind the black, Bob Zimmerman is here.

Your subscriptions and donations most welcome because private space is getting busy with resources and monetizing ideas.

Blue Origin, which I've been hard on these many years,

have non-performance, is all of a sudden becoming innovative. I don't know what did this.

Bob, Blue Origin has a tug. What's a tug?

All right. They have been developing something called the Blue Ring orbital tug.

An orbital tug is basically a engine, a system, a service module that can take a payload from one orbit to another.

You get launched on a rocket. The rocket puts you in an orbit you don't really want.

You want to be in a different place. You use the orbital tug to get to other places. You hire the tug to be attached to your satellite and it gets launched and does the

move. Orbital tugs can also be used to maneuver satellites from place to place. And this is where

this story comes in. Blue Origin has gotten a customer. The customer is a situational awareness

company called optimum technologies. They do cameras in space for the purposes of observing other satellites. And this is something both Russia and China have done. They send up what they call an inspect the satellite that, like a tug, maneuvers to other satellites to spy on them, to observe them,

to do reconnaissance. They've done this a lot. The U.S. has not done this that much. So Blue

Origin has won a contract with optimum technologies to put its cameras on a blue ring orbital tug,

and it will launch next year, and it will maneuver from point to point,

using that camera to take imagery and data.

I suspect they will be inspecting foreign and domestic satellites as part of this test.

Blue Origin is getting business, so this is a good deal for them.

I'm impressed.

And is this influence of Bezos? Is this a new guy? Do we know? No, this is a good deal for them. I'm impressed. And is this influence of Bezos?

Is this a new guy?

Do we know?

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