Blue Origin launched its large new rocket on its first check flight Thursday, sending up a prototype satellite tv for pc to orbit 1000’s of miles above Earth.
Named after the first American to orbit Earth, the New Glenn rocket blasted off from Florida, hovering from the identical pad used to launch NASA’s Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft a half-century in the past.
Years within the making with heavy funding by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the 320-foot rocket carried an an experimental platform designed to host satellites or launch them into their correct orbits.
All seven predominant engines fired at liftoff because the rocket blazed via the predawn sky, drawing cheers from spectators lining the close by seashores.
Firm staff erupted in shouts and frenzied applause as soon as the craft efficiently orbit 13 minutes later, a feat that drew fast reward from SpaceX’s Elon Musk.
Bezos — participating within the launch from Mission Management — declined to reveal his private funding in this system.
He mentioned he doesn’t see Blue Origin in a contest with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, lengthy the rocket-launching dominator.
He stood a lot of the time at his seat in Mission Management, wanting anxious and completely happy on the similar time.
“Congratulations on reaching orbit on the primary try!” Musk mentioned through X.
For this check, the satellite tv for pc was anticipated to stay contained in the second stage whereas circling Earth.
The mission was anticipated to final six hours, with the second stage then positioned in a protected situation to remain in a excessive, out-of-the-way orbit in accordance with NASA’s practices for minimizing area junk.
The primary-stage booster missed its touchdown on a barge within the Atlantic minutes after liftoff so it may very well be recycled, however the firm careworn that the extra vital aim was for the check satellite tv for pc to succeed in orbit. Bezos mentioned earlier than the flight it was “slightly loopy” to even attempt to land the booster on the primary strive.
“What a incredible day,” Blue Origin’s launch commentator Ariane Cornell, mentioned.
New Glenn was presupposed to fly earlier than daybreak Monday, however ice buildup in crucial plumbing triggered a delay. The rocket is constructed to haul spacecraft and ultimately astronauts to orbit and likewise the moon.
Based 25 years in the past by Bezos, Blue Origin has been launching paying passengers to the sting of area since 2021, together with himself. The quick hops from Texas use smaller rockets named after the primary American in area, Alan Shepard. New Glenn, which honors John Glenn, is 5 instances taller.
Blue Origin poured greater than $1 billion into New Glenn’s launch website, rebuilding historic Advanced 36 at Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station.
The pad is 9 miles from the corporate’s management facilities and rocket manufacturing unit, exterior the gates of NASA’s Kennedy House Heart.
Blue Origin envisions six to eight New Glenn flights this 12 months, if all the pieces goes effectively, with the subsequent one developing this spring.
“There’s room for many winners” Bezos mentioned from the rocket manufacturing unit over the weekend, including that this was the “very, very starting of this new section of the area age, the place we’re all going to work collectively as an trade … to decrease the price of entry to area.”
New Glenn is the newest in a sequence of massive, new rockets to launch in recent times, together with United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, Europe’s upgraded Ariane 6 and NASA’s House Launch System or SLS, the area company’s successor to the Saturn V for sending astronauts to the moon.
The largest rocket of all, at roughly 400 toes, is SpaceX’s Starship.
Musk mentioned the seventh check flight of the total rocket might happen later Thursday from Texas. He hopes to repeat what he pulled off in October, catching the returning booster on the launch pad with big mechanical arms.
Starship is what NASA plans to make use of to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. The primary two moon landings below the area company’s Artemis program, which follows the Apollo missions of the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, will see crews descending from lunar orbit to the floor in Starships.
Blue Origin’s lander, dubbed Blue Moon, will make its debut on the third lunar landing by astronauts.
NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson pushed for competing moon landers much like the technique to rent two firms to ferry astronauts to and from the Worldwide House Station. Nelson will step down when President-elect Donald Trump takes workplace on Monday.
Trump has tapped tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Isaacman, who has twice rocketed into orbit on his personal privately financed SpaceX flights, should be permitted by the Senate.
New Glenn’s debut was presupposed to ship twin spacecraft to Mars for NASA. However the area company pulled them from final October’s deliberate flight when it turned clear the rocket wouldn’t be prepared in time.
They’ll nonetheless fly on a New Glenn rocket, however not till spring on the earliest. The 2 small spacecraft, named Escapade, are supposed to research the Martian environment and magnetic atmosphere whereas orbiting the crimson planet.
Supply hyperlink
