Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launches large New Glenn rocket on first take a look at flight

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launches large New Glenn rocket on first take a look at flight

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket lifts off on its inaugural launch on the Cape Canaveral Area Power Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., on January 16, 2025.
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters

Blue Origin launched its large new rocket on its first take a look at flight Thursday (January 16, 2025), sending up a prototype satellite tv for pc to orbit hundreds of miles above Earth.

Named after the primary American to orbit Earth, the New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida, hovering from the identical pad used to launch NASA’s Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft a half-century in the past.

Years within the making with heavy funding by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the 320-foot (98-meter) rocket carried an an experimental platform designed to host satellites or launch them into their correct orbits. All seven primary engines fired at liftoff because the rocket blazed by the predawn sky, drawing cheers from spectators lining the close by seashores. Firm workers erupted in shouts and frenzied applause as soon as the craft efficiently orbit 13 minutes later, a feat that drew fast reward from SpaceX’s Elon Musk.

Mr. Bezos — participating within the launch from Mission Management — declined to reveal his private funding in this system. He mentioned he doesn’t see Blue Origin in a contest with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, lengthy the rocket-launching dominator.

He stood a lot of the time at his seat in Mission Management, wanting anxious and glad on the similar time.

“Congratulations on reaching orbit on the primary try!” Mr. Musk mentioned through X.

For this take a look at, the satellite tv for pc was anticipated to stay contained in the second stage whereas circling Earth. The mission was anticipated to final six hours, with the second stage then positioned in a secure situation to remain in a excessive, out-of-the-way orbit in accordance with NASA’s practices for minimizing house junk.

The primary-stage booster missed its touchdown on a barge within the Atlantic minutes after liftoff so it could possibly be recycled, however the firm confused that the extra necessary purpose was for the take a look at satellite tv for pc to achieve orbit. Bezos mentioned earlier than the flight it was “just a little loopy” to even attempt to land the booster on the primary strive.

“What a implausible day,” Blue Origin’s launch commentator Ariane Cornell, mentioned.

New Glenn was alleged to fly earlier than daybreak Monday, however ice buildup in vital plumbing triggered a delay. The rocket is constructed to haul spacecraft and ultimately astronauts to orbit and in addition the moon.

Based 25 years in the past by Mr. Bezos, Blue Origin has been launching paying passengers to the sting of house since 2021, together with himself. The quick hops from Texas use smaller rockets named after the primary American in house, Alan Shepard. New Glenn, which honors John Glenn, is 5 occasions taller.

Blue Origin poured greater than $1 billion into New Glenn’s launch website, rebuilding historic Advanced 36 at Cape Canaveral Area Power Station. The pad is 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the corporate’s management facilities and rocket manufacturing facility, exterior the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle.

Blue Origin envisions six to eight New Glenn flights this 12 months, if all the things goes nicely, with the subsequent one arising this spring.

“There’s room for plenty of winners” Mr. Bezos mentioned from the rocket manufacturing facility over the weekend, including that this was the “very, very starting of this new part of the house age, the place we’re all going to work collectively as an trade … to decrease the price of entry to house.”

New Glenn is the most recent in a sequence of massive, new rockets to launch lately, together with United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, Europe’s upgraded Ariane 6 and NASA’s Area Launch System or SLS, the house company’s successor to the Saturn V for sending astronauts to the moon.

The largest rocket of all, at roughly 400 ft (123 meters), is SpaceX’s Starship. Musk mentioned the seventh take a look at flight of the total rocket may happen later Thursday from Texas. He hopes to repeat what he pulled off in October, catching the returning booster on the launch pad with large mechanical arms.

Starship is what NASA plans to make use of to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. The primary two moon landings underneath the house company’s Artemis program, which follows the Apollo missions of the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, will see crews descending from lunar orbit to the floor in Starships.

Blue Origin’s lander, dubbed Blue Moon, will make its debut on the third lunar landing by astronauts.

NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson pushed for competing moon landers just like the technique to rent two firms to ferry astronauts to and from the Worldwide Area Station. Nelson will step down when President-elect Donald Trump takes workplace on Monday.

Mr. Trump has tapped tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Isaacman, who has twice rocketed into orbit on his personal privately financed SpaceX flights, should be permitted by the Senate.

New Glenn’s debut was alleged to ship twin spacecraft to Mars for NASA. However the house company pulled them from final October’s deliberate flight when it grew to become clear the rocket would not be prepared in time. They may nonetheless fly on a New Glenn rocket, however not till spring on the earliest. The 2 small spacecraft, named Escapade, are supposed to research the Martian ambiance and magnetic surroundings whereas orbiting the purple planet.

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