This handout photo provided by Blue Origin shows the New Glenn rocket on the launch pad at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
A quarter-century after its founding, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is finally ready for its first orbital journey on a brand-new rocket that hopes to shake up the commercial space race.
The launch, originally scheduled for Sunday, has been postponed by a day due to “unfavorable” sea conditions, Blue Origin posted on X.
The rocket, named New Glenn after the legendary astronaut, will stand 320 feet (98 meters) tall, roughly the size of a 32-story building, and is currently flying off the Cape Canaveral Space Center with its launch window opening at 1 p.m. It will be launched from a military base. Monday midnight (6:00 GMT).
“Pointy End Up!” company CEO Dave Limp posted on X, along with a photo of the shiny white giant.
With the mission, dubbed NG-1, Bezos, the world’s second richest man, is directly targeting the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. Musk’s company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
They serve the commercial sector, the Department of Defense, and the US space agency NASA, including, importantly, transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
“SpaceX has been pretty much the only game in the game for the last few years, so now they have a competitor…this is great,” former NASA official G. Scott Hubbard told AFP.
Meanwhile, SpaceX plans the next orbital test of its massive new generation rocket, Starship, the next day, intensifying the high-stakes rivalry.
A diagram comparing major rockets.
landing attempt
If all goes to plan, shortly after launch, Blue Origin will fly the drone ship, named Jacklin in honor of Bezos’ mother, stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downstream in the Atlantic Ocean. We plan to attempt to land a first-stage booster.
While such landings have long been a near-daily sight for SpaceX, this will be Blue Origin’s first touchdown on the high seas.
Meanwhile, the rocket’s upper stage will fire its engines into Earth orbit and carry a Pentagon-funded prototype spacecraft called Blue Ring, which will remain on board for a roughly six-hour test flight.
Limp stressed that while simply reaching orbit is the main goal, successful recovery of the booster would be a welcome “bonus.”
Blue Origin has experience landing New Shepard rockets used for suborbital tourism, but the rockets are much smaller and land on the surface rather than on ships at sea.
Jeff Bezos walks near Blue Origin’s New Shepard after his spaceflight on July 20, 2021 in Van Horn, Texas.
Physically, the New Glenn is smaller than the 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed for heavier payloads.
It sits between the Falcon 9 and its sibling the Falcon Heavy in terms of payload, but has the advantage of a wider payload fairing, making it ideal for transporting larger cargo volumes.
Slow and fast development
Blue Origin has already won a NASA contract to launch two Mars rovers at New Glenn. The rocket will also support the deployment of Project Kuiper, a satellite internet constellation designed to compete with Starlink.
But for now, SpaceX maintains a commanding lead, while other rivals United Launch Alliance, Arianespace and Rocket Lab lag far behind.
Like Musk, Bezos has a lifelong passion for space. But while Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisions moving heavy industry to off-planet floating space platforms to protect Earth, the “blue origin of humanity.” There is.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket (right, rear) sits on its launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting its maiden flight.
He founded Blue Origin in 2000, two years before Musk founded SpaceX, but adopted a more measured pace in contrast to his rival’s “fail fast, learn fast” philosophy. did.
“Blue Origin’s very deliberate approach has created impatience within the space community,” Scott Pace, a space policy analyst at George Washington University and former member of the National Space Council, told AFP. “I’m working on it,” he said.
If New Glenn is successful, Pace added, it would give the U.S. government “differential redundancy,” or valuable backup in case one system fails.
Musk’s closeness to President-elect Donald Trump has raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest, particularly with Musk’s business associate and private astronaut Jared Isaacman, who is slated to be NASA’s next administrator. There is.
But Bezos paid tribute to his former enemy during a visit to President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion and made an offer of his own, announcing that Amazon would donate $1 million to the inaugural committee.
© 2025 AFP
Source: Blue Origin sets giant New Glenn rocket for first launch (January 11, 2025) From https://phys.org/news/2025-01-blue-giant-glenn-rocket.html January 2025 12 days acquired
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