Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight firm Blue Origin launched its new mega-rocket, known as New Glenn, into orbit for the primary time.
The rocket lifted off at 2:03AM ET on January 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and crossed the official boundary into area a couple of minutes later. Shortly after, a second-stage burn positioned the rocket’s higher part into orbit across the Earth.
Whereas it was the rocket’s inaugural launch, plenty of issues went proper, and the corporate had mentioned that reaching orbit safely was its major goal. However the rocket’s first stage exploded on the way in which again all the way down to Earth as Blue Origin tried to land that part on a drone ship at sea. The corporate hopes to launch once more this spring and plans as many as eight New Glenn launches this yr.
“I’m extremely proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first try,” Dave Limp, former Amazon govt and CEO of Blue Origin, mentioned in an announcement. “We knew touchdown our booster, ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Likelihood,’ on the primary strive was an formidable purpose. We’ll study so much from right now and take a look at once more at our subsequent launch this spring. Thanks to all of Workforce Blue for this unimaginable milestone.”
The profitable launch kicks off a brand new period for Blue Origin, which till now has been caught with a rocket (known as New Shepard) that isn’t designed to go to orbit, which limits its usefulness. Blue Origin wants New Glenn to succeed so as to construct a strong launch enterprise so as to tackle Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has dominated the trade lately.
First revealed in 2016, New Glenn stands 320 ft excessive and is powered by seven BE-4 engines, which Blue Origin additionally designed. The corporate had initially hoped to launch the mega-rocket as early as 2021. However the expensive growth course of took longer than anticipated. Alongside the way in which, Blue Origin frolicked locked in authorized battles with NASA and SpaceX over launch contracts, and was accused of chopping corners on security by a number of staff.
Blue Origin now hopes to make use of New Glenn to launch satellites and different spacecraft, together with ones it’s designing for the Moon. The corporate already has contracts with NASA, the House Drive, Amazon’s Challenge Kuiper, and others.
It additionally hopes to at some point launch astronauts to the Moon as a part of NASA’s Artemis challenge. That mentioned, NASA’s focus is at all times shifting with the political winds, and Musk — who has cast a deep relationship with incoming president Donald Trump — has mentioned the “Moon is a distraction.” Bezos informed the press this week that he thinks there’s room for “a number of winners” within the trade.
