Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight firm Blue Origin launched its new mega-rocket, referred to 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.
While it was the rocket’s inaugural launch, various issues went proper, and the corporate had stated that reaching orbit safely was its essential goal. But the rocket’s first stage exploded on the way in which again right down to Earth as Blue Origin tried to land that part on a drone ship at sea. The firm hopes to launch once more this spring and plans as many as eight New Glenn launches this 12 months.
“I’m extremely proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first try,” Dave Limp, former Amazon govt and CEO of Blue Origin, stated in an announcement. “We knew touchdown our booster, ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,’ on the primary strive was an bold purpose. We’ll be taught rather a lot from as we speak and take a look at once more at our subsequent launch this spring. Thank you to all of Team Blue for this unbelievable milestone.”
The profitable launch kicks off a brand new period for Blue Origin, which till now has been caught with a rocket (referred to as New Shepard) that isn’t designed to go to orbit, which limits its usefulness. Blue Origin wants New Glenn to succeed with a purpose to construct a stable launch enterprise with a purpose to tackle Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has dominated the business in recent times.
First revealed in 2016, New Glenn stands 320 toes excessive and is powered by seven BE-4 engines, which Blue Origin additionally designed. The firm had initially hoped to launch the mega-rocket as early as 2021. But the expensive growth course of took longer than anticipated. Along the way in which, Blue Origin frolicked locked in authorized battles with NASA and SpaceX over launch contracts, and was accused of slicing corners on security by a number of workers.
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 firm already has contracts with NASA, the Space Force, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and others.
It additionally hopes to at some point launch astronauts to the Moon as a part of NASA’s Artemis undertaking. That stated, NASA’s focus is all the time shifting with the political winds, and Musk — who has solid a deep relationship with incoming president Donald Trump — has stated the “Moon is a distraction.” Bezos informed the press this week that he thinks there’s room for “a number of winners” within the business.
