Out of this world: New Glenn boldly soars to orbit on its maiden voyage
January 16, 2025
Thursday 16 January saw Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, enter the ranks of major rocket leagues as its NG-1 mission successfully achieved its primary objective: the first orbital flight of its New Glenn rocket.
Following its delayed liftoff on Monday, the 32-story-tall New Glenn fired its seven BE-4 engines at 2.03 am EST on Thursday morning, before “ascending toward the stars” above Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, US and safely reaching orbit.
The second stage achieved its final orbit following two flawless burns of the BE-3U engines, with the Blue Ring Pathfinder receiving data and performing well. However, the rocket booster named ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance’ was lost during descent, with Blue Origin CEO, David Limp, acknowledging “landing the booster on the first try was an ambitious goal.”
Reusable rockets
Like its competitor, SpaceX, Blue Origin plans to pave the way for reusable rockets. The booster was intended to return to Earth, which would have marked the company’s initial step to proving the reusability of its booster. Currently SpaceX is the only company to have recovered and reused a rocket’s booster.
New Glenn is Blue Origin’s second rocket, but its first destined to reach Earth’s orbit. Its successful maiden launch represents a major milestone, positioning the company to deliver payloads to orbit and challenge SpaceX’s dominance in the space industry.
Mission to Mars
The rocket plays a pivotal role in advancing Blue Origin’s long-term goals, including a sustained human presence on the Moon, harnessing in-space resources, and enabling multi-mission, multi-orbit mobility through the Blue Ring platform.
Future New Glenn missions will also support NASA’s Artemis programme, carrying the Blue Moon Mark 1 Cargo lander and the Mark 2 crewed lander to the Moon.
With multiple vehicles in production and several years’ worth or orders, New Glenn is well positioned to meet the needs of customers, including NASA, Amazon, AST SpaceMobile and several telecommunications providers. The vehicle is also undergoing certification with the US Space Force for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) programme, ensuring it meets evolving national security demand.
“Today marks a new era for Blue Origin and for commercial space,” said Jarrett Jones, senior vice president of New Glenn. Adding his gratitude to everyone at Blue Origin for their work in making New Glenn’s mission a success, he added the business is now “focused on ramping our launch cadence and manufacturing rates.”
Sign up for our newsletter and get our latest content in your inbox.
