Blue Origin, the company founded by Jeff Bezos, also the creator of Amazon, announced the launch of its first orbital rocket, a crucial milestone in the competitive commercial space industry currently led by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The rocket, called New Glennis scheduled to take off this Friday, January 10, from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. According to a statement issued by the company on Monday evening, the launch will have a three-hour window starting at 1:00 am local time (06:00 GMT).
On its inaugural mission, called NG-1, the New Glenn will transport a prototype of Blue Ringa spacecraft developed with funding from the United States Department of Defense. Designed as a flexible platform for satellite deployment, Blue Ring will remain aboard the rocket’s second stage for a six-hour test flight.
This launch will mark Blue Origin’s long-awaited entry into the competitive and lucrative orbital launch market, after years of operating suborbital flights with its smallest rocket, New Shepard. This vehicle has transported passengers and payloads on short trips to the edge of space, consolidating the company’s experience in the sector.
“This is our first flight and we have prepared rigorously for it,” said Jarrett Jones, senior vice president of New Glennin the official statement. “But no ground test or mission simulation can replace the actual flight of this rocket. It’s time to fly. Whatever happens, we will learn, refine and apply that knowledge in our next launch,” he added.
The milestone not only represents a significant step forward for Blue Origin, but will also intensify competition between Jeff Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, and Elon Musk, who tops the list and has cemented SpaceX’s dominance in the space industry. Musk has also become an influential member of President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle, adding a political dimension to this growing rivalry.
The rocket New Glenn, reusable and designed to land on the high seas
He New Glenn is capable of transporting almost 45,000 metric tons cargo to low Earth orbit. For low altitude orbits, this is a weight class above the maximum rocket capacity United Launch Alliance Vulcan or of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocketbut below SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. Blue Origin also plans to use the New Glenn rocket to launch lunar landers for NASA’s Artemis program.
New Glenn’s first stage booster is reusable and designed to land on an offshore barge in the Atlantic Ocean, which will return it to shore, similar to how SpaceX recovers its Falcon 9 booster.
“The canopy is large enough to house three school buses,” Blue Origin stated. “Its first reusable stage aims to a minimum of 25 missions and will land on a maritime platform located about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the coast.”
Blue Origin has currently been in existence for 24 years and employs approximately 11,000 people in offices throughout the country, with the main ones in Washington, Texas, Florida and Alabama. Although the company hasn’t put anything into orbit yet, Blue Origin is working on a wide range of projects beyond rockets, including Lunar landers for cargo and humans for NASA and a space tug that would move cargo to different orbits for the US military. The New Glenn is crucial to all of these plans.
Blue Origin’s latest developments with New Glenn come as Bezos’ space company appears to be on the verge of purchasing the United Launch Alliance (ULA) from Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Getting New Glenn to the launch pad is a major achievement for Blue Origin. This is clearly a watershed moment for the privately funded New Glenn program.
The next step will consist of “several demonstrations of cryogenic fluid loading, pressure control and vehicle ventilation systems,” Blue Origin explained. According to a report published by Aviation Week, Blue Origin will fill this test vehicle with cryogenic liquid nitrogen as a substitute for the supercold methane and liquid oxygen propellants used by the first stage booster in an actual launch. The upper stage will not be loaded during this upcoming Integrated Tank Test (Integrated Tanking Test or ITT, for its acronym in English).
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