Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully launches New Glenn rocket into orbit, a feat that took 15 years to accomplish

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Shortly after 2 a.m. ET on January 16, 2025, a new rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket launch reached orbit, marking a milestone for a commercial space company with big ambitions.
As a space policy expert, I see New Glenn’s success as a major step forward for Blue Origin and bodes well for the expanding and ambitious commercial space industry.
step by step
SpaceX may be the best-known commercial space company, but Blue Origin is about two years older. Founded in 2000 by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the company envisions an era in which millions of people will live and work in space.
To advance that vision, the company is developing its own reusable rockets that could improve access to space.
Blue Origin’s motto is gradatim ferociter, which in Latin means “step by step, furiously.” Bezos explained that this reflects the company’s approach to spaceflight.
“If you’re going to build a flying vehicle, you can’t cut any corners,” Bezos said at the 2016 Pathfinder Awards. “If you cut corners, you’ll have the illusion that it’s going to be faster.”
This step-by-step approach took Blue Origin 15 years to launch its first rocket. New Shepard, launched in 2015, was named after Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space.
The new Shepard isn’t powerful enough to reach orbit. Instead, it flies in a suborbital orbit. That means flying to the edge of space, experiencing low gravity for just a few minutes, and then returning to the launch site.
What makes New Shepard unique is its ability to carry passengers. On July 20, 2021, it carried three people, including Bezos, into space for the first time. Since then, New Shepard has completed eight manned flights and 21 unmanned flights. Notably, it carried Star Trek’s William Shatner into space on October 13, 2021.
However, New Shepherd is not without its problems. In 2022, an engine failure occurred one minute after liftoff. With no people on board, the launch escape system was activated and the capsule was able to return safely to Earth. This landing meant that if people were on board, they too could have returned safely.
expand envelope
Blue Origin learned a lot from New Shepard’s flight, but the company needs a more powerful rocket. New Glenn, named after John Glenn, the first American to reach orbit, is designed to be that rocket.
Blue Origin began developing New Glenn in 2013, but didn’t officially announce it until 2016. It consists of two sections called stages. The first stage has seven engines. Once the stage has used up all its fuel, the goal is to detach and return to the barge at sea, similar to SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
At that point, the second stage’s three engines will light up and the rocket will depart for the rest of space.
Unfortunately, during the first launch on January 16, the first stage booster was destroyed while attempting to return to the landing barge. Before the launch, company officials said they didn’t know if the flight would be able to recover the booster, but they would try anyway.
At over 320 feet (98 meters) tall, New Glenn is shorter than the Apollo-era Saturn V (363 feet, 111 meters) but taller than a fully stacked Space Shuttle (184 feet, or 64 meters) is. ) and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (229 feet, or 70 meters). It has twice the power of the Space Shuttle, but half the power of the Saturn V.
In addition to New Glenn, the company is developing Blue Moon, a lunar lander for use in future NASA missions to the moon. It is also developing Blue Ring, a space services platform that can refuel and move satellites.
Blue Origin is also a key part of Orbital Reef, a commercial space station planned for low Earth orbit. Blue Origin likened Orbital Reef to a “mixed-use business park” that would provide space for research, development and manufacturing in orbit.
Impact on commercial space
Blue Origin’s success in reaching orbit with New Glenn is an important step for the larger commercial space industry. Importantly, it will create competition from SpaceX, which some argue has a near monopoly on launch services in the United States.
Competition in launch services is valuable. This incentivizes both companies to provide the best service at the lowest cost. Having multiple launch providers is also a sign of a healthy commercial market.
The competition also provides options for accessing space in case one company has to shut down Team Rocket. This happened several times in 2024 with SpaceX, when three of the company’s rockets encountered problems during launch. In this situation, the customer had no choice but to wait for SpaceX to investigate and resolve the issue.
While New Glenn plans to begin unmanned missions over the next few years, Blue Origin has entered into a space law agreement with NASA in 2023 to develop more commercial projects, including manned vehicles.
Blue Origin’s crew vehicle will give NASA more options for transporting humans to low-Earth orbit and to the moon.
It took 25 years to launch New Glenn, but it’s a major accomplishment for Blue Origin, and one that’s needed if it wants to continue its space travel goals with a bang.
Provided by The Conversation
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