WASHINGTON — Blue Origin considers the first flight of its New Glenn rocket a success, but the company must complete an accident investigation before its next launch.
New Glenn completed its first successful launch, known as NG-1, on January 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The second stage reached orbit, but the first stage failed to land in the Atlantic Ocean as planned.
The payload of the NG-1 mission was the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a technology demonstrator for the company’s planned Blue Ring orbital transport vehicle. The payload remained attached to the upper stage to test communications, power, and other systems.
The company says these tests were successful. “Our Blue Ring Pathfinder achieved all mission objectives within its planned six-hour itinerary after being placed into the desired orbit by New Glenn at an inclination of 30 degrees with an apogee of 19,300 km and a perigee of 2,400 km. ” said Dave Limp. Blue Origin’s CEO said in a social media post on January 17th.
Limp added that the upper stage “was able to insert reliably with less than 1% deviation from the precise orbital injection target.” Data from the U.S. Space Force’s Space-Track.org service shows the upper stage is in a 2,426-by-19,251-kilometer orbit with an inclination of 29.99 degrees.
Blue Origin has not released any details about the mission beyond Limp’s post since a press release shortly after launch. This does not include information about the fate of the first stage, which was headed for landing on the company’s landing platform ship Jacklin after stage separation. As shown in the launch webcast, telemetry from the first stage froze around T+7:55, near the scheduled end of the three-engine reentry burn. The stage was located at an altitude of 25,672 meters and was traveling at a speed of 6,896 kilometers per hour at the time.
The landing attempt failed and the company must conduct an accident investigation. Regarding the booster landing failure, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement: “The FAA is aware of an anomaly that occurred during the Blue Origin NG-1 mission, which launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on January 16. ” he said. “The FAA is requiring Blue Origin to conduct an investigation into the accident.”
Blue Origin will lead the accident investigation, with the involvement of the FAA, which is standard procedure for such investigations. Officials must approve the final report and corrective actions before allowing launches to resume.
It’s unclear whether the study will affect New Glenn’s future launch schedule. Limp said in a statement shortly after the launch that the next launch is planned for the spring, but did not provide a more specific schedule or launch payload.
Although the landing failed, the company won praise for reaching orbit on its first attempt. “Today’s test flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station marks a pivotal moment in the development of heavy-lift reusable rockets,” said John New Glenn, chief executive of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Yes, said former Blue Origin executive Clay Mowry. He said this in a statement on January 16th. “As a modern heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn will bring competition to the launch market, reduce costs, expand access to space, and accelerate the growing space economy by supporting returns to the Moon and Mars. I’m letting you do it.
Dale Sklan, chief operating officer and senior vice president of the National Space Association, a space advocacy group, said Blue could provide competition to SpaceX by adding additional refueling units that can carry large payloads into space. It’s great to see the steady progress we’re making towards providing customers with available vehicles.” group.
But some have privately criticized the company for choosing to place the upper stage in a high metastasis orbit that does not follow on-orbit debris mitigation guidelines. This orbit avoids the populated areas of low and medium Earth orbits, but the breakup could generate debris that could travel into those orbits.
