Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, marked a significant achievement on Thursday with the successful debut launch of its new large-capacity rocket, the New Glenn. The landing of the rocket’s first stage on a ferry in the Atlantic Ocean, however, was delayed to a future mission despite the successful launch to orbit.
The 98-meter tall rocket launched from Platform 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida after experiencing some delays in the countdown. The launch, scheduled for 3 a.m. (Brasília time), was delayed until 4 a.m. due to engine cooling and the need to remove a boat from the protected area. Approximately 13 minutes after launch, the second stage successfully reached orbit, achieving the objective of placing objects in Earth’s orbit.
Contact with the first stage was lost during re-entry, as anticipated by Blue Origin engineers. Jeff Bezos had suggested landing the rocket in the ocean initially instead of attempting a vertical landing, similar to SpaceX’s approach to rocket recovery.
Blue Origin’s larger rocket, New Glenn, encounters new challenges due to its size, despite the company’s past experience with vertical landings. Similar to SpaceX’s earlier struggles with Falcon 9, Blue Origin is beginning its journey toward successful rocket recovery with high hopes for the future.
Flight goal and future actions
The recent New Glenn launch on Thursday focused on certification testing to show the rocket’s capability in placing objects in orbit. The mission was deemed highly successful, but the U.S. Department of Defense mandates two successful flights for the rocket to be authorized for missions involving military satellites.
Blue Origin launched the Blue Ring Pathfinder during the flight, an experimental device intended to function as a “space tug” for relocating satellites across various orbits. The device stayed attached to the second stage of the New Glenn during the mission, orbiting in an elliptical path with a 19.3 thousand km highest point and a 2.4 km lowest point, with the mission expected to take around six hours.
The New Glenn sits between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy in terms of payload capacity, being able to carry up to 45 tons to low Earth orbit. It costs around $69 million per launch, similar to both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
Blue Origin intends to conduct six to seven New Glenn launches in 2025, with agreements in place with NASA, Telesat, and the Kuiper Project. Additionally, in 2026, the New Glenn is set to launch the Blue Moon Mark 2 module for a lunar mission.
Blue Origin’s main challenge is to boost the frequency of launches in order to catch up with SpaceX’s capacity of over 100 launches per year by 2025.