Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket rockets into orbit after launching from Kennedy Space Center on its maiden flight, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January 16, 2025.
Greg Newton | AFP | Getty Images
Blue Origin launched its towering New Glenn rocket for the first time on Thursday, in an important step for us Jeff Bezos Space company.
Launching from the launch pad in the early morning hours of Florida, New Glenn reached space and eventually reached orbit as part of a long-awaited first mission. Blue Origin also attempted to land the rocket's booster on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, but the booster was lost during atmospheric reentry.
The launch represents a defining moment for Blue Origin.
Although founded 25 years ago, Bezos' company has not yet begun flying into orbit, with its smaller rocket, New Shepard, only flying people and research on short trips to the edge of space. The New Glenn flight marks Blue Origin's entry into a market it has dominated Elon Musk SpaceX which is crucial to launching the billionaire founder's grandest ambitions.
No one was on board the New Glenn flight, which carried one small test payload into space. The rocket is named in honor of the late John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth.
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station before January 16, 2025.
Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Originally the company was aiming to achieve the audacious feat of flying NASA's ESCAPADE rover. A mission to Mars in New Glenn's first appearance. But as the launch window dwindled, the agency delayed the release of ESCAPADE to a later launch date. Blue Origin also has orders from AmazonKuiper Project to launch at least 12 Internet satellites, as well as plans to launch the Blue Moon Lunar Station and the Orbital Reef space station. Bezos founded Amazon six years before Blue Origin.
Blue Origin is headquartered in the Seattle suburb of Kent, Washington, and has more than 10,000 employees there and in six other major locations across the country, including industry heartlands in Texas, Florida and Alabama. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp previously told CNBC That Blue Origin has been “in R&D for a long time,” is an aspect of the company culture that he is trying to change.
Blue plans to rapidly expand New Glenn's missions, wanting to carry out up to 10 New Glenn launches this year. The rocket was originally scheduled to make its debut in 2020, but has faced years of delays.
Mission
A few minutes after launch, the rocket's booster separated and re-entered the atmosphere. The booster rocket — nicknamed “So You're Telling Me There's a Chance” — was trying to land on the company's barge Jacqueline about 600 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, but failed. A Blue Origin webcast last showed the booster at about 84,000 feet.
While New Glenn did not deploy any satellites into orbit during the flight, it did carry a small experimental version of the company's Blue Ring spacecraft. Blue Ring, known in the industry as an Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV), or space tug, is designed to host satellites and spacecraft, delivering them from the rocket to their intended target.
As is typical with the first launch of an orbital rocket, New Glenn's launch encountered some snags along the way, with delays of several days due to technical issues with the rocket and weather.
The missile
Launching the first New Glenn rocket in preparation for launch.
Blue original
New Glenn is the size of a 30-story skyscraper and stands 322 feet tall, nearly the height of the Saturn V rockets that carried the Apollo missions to the moon, and has a diameter of 23 feet. The Blue rocket is powered by seven of the company's BE-4 engines, which together generate nearly 4 million pounds of thrust, and New Glenn's nose is wide and long enough to launch three school buses into space simultaneously.
The rocket is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane and is designed to be partially reusable, with Blue Origin aiming to launch, land and relaunch each booster up to 25 times.
In terms of mass delivered to orbit per launch, New Glenn is on par with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, with Blue Origin's vehicle designed to lift up to 45,000 kilograms (or about 100,000 pounds) into low Earth orbit.
Blue Origin has not disclosed the total cost or price per launch of the New Glenn rockets. Three years ago, Blue Origin said it had invested $2.5 billion so far in the New Glen development. One competitor estimates that New Glenn sells for about $70 million per launch.
So far, at the orbital mission industry table, Blue Origin has not gotten into the serious rocket game, with SpaceX still dominating the US launch market, followed by SpaceX. Rocket laboratoryUnited Launch Alliance and Firefly Aerospace.
Already, Blue Origin has a toehold with New Glenn in the most lucrative part of the launch market: aviation for the military. Last year, Blue Origin joined SpaceX and ULA in the Pentagon's $5.6 billion National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, allowing the company to compete for contracts.
While Blue Origin has lagged behind SpaceX in the industry, Bezos remains optimistic about his company's potential.
“I think it will be the best job I've ever been involved in, but it will take some time,” Bezos said. He said recently.
Jeff, Welcome to the club.
