
New Glenn — the
Blue Origin reusable rocket purpose-built to deliver high volume and mass to orbit — safely reached its intended orbit last week (16 January), during the NG-1 mission from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. New Glenn’s seven BE-4 engines ignited at 2:03am EST, and the second stage was in its final orbit following two successful burns of the BE-3U engines, although the booster was lost the during descent.
Dave Limp, Blue Origin ’s CEO, said: “I am incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt. We knew landing our booster —
So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance — on the first try was an ambitious goal. We will learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring. Thank you to all of Team Blue for this incredible milestone.
“New Glenn is foundational to advancing our customers’ critical missions as well as our own. The vehicle underpins our efforts to establish sustained human presence on the Moon, harness in-space resources, provide multi-mission, multi-orbit mobility through Blue Ring, and establish destinations in low-Earth orbit. Future New Glenn missions will carry the Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander and the Mark 2 crewed lander to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis programme.”
Multiple years of ordersMr Limp went on to say that the programe has several vehicles in production and multiple years of orders, adding that customers include NASA, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, and several telecommunications providers. Also that Blue Origin is certifying New Glenn with the US Space Force for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) programme designed to meet ‘emerging national security objectives’.
This latest New Glenn mission followed completing the integrated Launch Vehicle Hotfire test on 27 December, when it successfully completed an integrated launch vehicle hot-fire test that lasted 24sec and marked the first time that Blue Origin had operated ‘the entire flight vehicle’ as an integrated system. The multi-day test campaign leading up to the hotfire included numerous inert functional and tanking tests. The integrated launch vehicle included the first and second stages of the NG-1 flight vehicle, and a payload test article comprised of manufacturing test demonstrator fairings, a high-capacity fixed adapter flight unit, and a 45,000lb payload-mass simulator.
Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos (an American businessman best known as the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon), Blue Origin initially operated with a very low profile, funded by Bezos’s private investments. In 2015, the company achieved a significant milestone with the first uncrewed launch and landing of the New Shepard and announced plans for New Glenn. In 2021, New Shepard completed its first crewed mission with Bezos himself on board. Another key achievement came in January 2023 when the company delivered its first BE-4rocket engine to United Launch Alliance.