Amazon Devices Leader Dave Limp Named CEO of Bezos’ Blue Origin

Amazon veteran Dave Limp is going from Alexa to outer space.

Limp, who led the company’s devices unit, was chosen by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to be CEO of his aerospace firm, Blue Origin, Reuters reported Thursday (Dec. 21).

Limp’s priorities include boosting the development of the company’s New Glenn rocket and its BE-4 engine as it looks to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources who attended a company-wide Blue Origin meeting this month.

At that meeting, the report said, Limp emphasized the importance of meeting scheduled deadlines and discussed focusing more on integrating software and artificial intelligence in manufacturing.

Limp will also supervise plans to construct a moon lander for NASA, as well as an orbital space station and a business based on maneuverable servicing and refueling satellites, per the report.

In addition, he will also oversee the relaunch of Blue Origin’s suborbital space tourism and research business as its only active rocket, the small, reusable New Shepard, takes to the skies after being grounded for more than a year, the report said.

Limp announced in August that he planned to retire from Amazon, saying simply: “It’s time.”

He oversaw products like the company’s Alexa assistant.

Meanwhile, Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite initiative took a step earlier this month toward establishing a globally connected optical mesh network driven by a space lasers system.

Amazon launched and deployed two prototype satellites with optical inter-satellite link (OISL) capabilities in October and has since been attempting to build an OISL ecosystem that can move and land data anywhere through a mesh network in space, “creating an end-to-end communications payload and network,” PYMNTS reported.

The two satellites have successfully transferred data at 100 gigabits per second over a distance of more than 600 miles via infrared lasers in space.

“Amazon’s optical mesh network will provide multiple paths to route data through space, creating resiliency and redundancy for customers who need to securely transport information around the world,” Ricky Freeman, vice president of Kuiper Government Solutions, a dedicated division within Project Kuiper, said in a statement.