Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space dreams are taking flight to a new level.
On Thursday, Bezos’ Blue Origin company launched its big rocket, called New Glenn. It took off at 2:30 a.m. ET from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and the second stage quickly reached orbit. The Blue Ring Pathfinder technology platform on board “received data and performed well,” Blue Origin said.
The company also hoped to retrieve the rocket booster after launch, but it was lost during the descent.
“We knew that landing our booster, so you’re telling me there’s a chance, on the first try was an ambitious goal. We’ll learn a lot from today and try again on our next launch this spring,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said in a statement.
This first flight for New Glenn could open a new chapter in commercial spaceflight, placing Blue Origin in competition with Elon Musk’s prolific SpaceX.
New Glenn’s first launch
The mission is appropriately called NG-1. The original launch window was January 10, but weather conditions prompted an initial postponement to January 13. Blue Origin got as far as a countdown before the launch was scrubbed.
Blue Origin’s payload (the cargo or spacecraft on board) for NG-1 is the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a spacecraft platform technology demonstrator.
Enlarge image
A key goal for Blue Origin is to capture the New Glenn rocket booster out at sea on a barge named Jacklyn.
“The rover will validate Blue Ring’s orbit-to-ground communications capabilities,” Blue Origin said in a December statement. “The mission will also test its in-space telemetry, tracking and command hardware, and ground-based radiometric tracking that will be used on the future Blue Ring production spacecraft.”
Blue Origin is aiming for a National Security Space Launch certification that would allow it to launch certain US government missions.
As with SpaceX’s flight-tested Falcon and Falcon Heavy rockets, parts of the New Glenn are designed to be reusable. That includes landing the rocket’s booster on a floating platform in the ocean.
See this: Watch Blue Origin launch the new Glenn Rocket for the first time
Blue Origin’s launch story
Enlarge image
Blue Origin’s New Shepard launches from Texas.
Blue Origin has sent several launches into suborbital space with its New Shepard spacecraft. Bezos himself, as well as celebrities such as William Shatner and Michael Strahan, have ridden the New Shepard.
New Shepard is named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space, while New Glenn honors John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.
At more than 320 feet tall, New Glenn is a hulk compared to New Shepard. The more powerful New Glenn is designed to deliver payloads to low Earth orbit. SpaceX’s Falcon rockets have dominated this field for years, but Blue Origin hopes to change that.
It’s not unusual for launches to run into technical issues and face delays, especially with untested hardware on the launch pad.
A lot could go right and a lot could go wrong.
“This is our first flight, and we’ve been rigorously preparing for it,” Blue Origin vice president Jarrett Jones said in early January. “But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations is a substitute for flying this rocket. It’s time to fly. Whatever happens, we will learn, refine and apply that knowledge to our next launch.”