Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin ready for the inaugural launch of its New Glenn rocket from Florida early on Monday, nearing a pivotal debut in Earth orbit that may mark a serious step in direction of a long-awaited objective of competing with Elon Musk’s SpaceX within the satellite tv for pc launch market.
Standing 30 storeys tall, the partially reusable New Glenn launcher sat on Blue Origin’s launchpad on the Cape Canaveral Area Power Station, prepared for its 1.30am (8.30am SAST) liftoff after being loaded with methane and liquid oxygen propellants.
The mission, the fruits of a decade-long, multibillion-dollar improvement journey, will embrace an try and land New Glenn’s first stage booster on a sea-faring barge within the Atlantic Ocean 10 minutes after liftoff, whereas the rocket’s second stage continues towards orbit.
“The factor we’re most nervous about is the booster touchdown,” Bezos, who based Blue Origin in 2000, mentioned in a pre-launch interview. “Clearly on a primary flight you could possibly have an anomaly at any mission section, so something might occur.”
Secured inside New Glenn’s payload bay is the primary prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring automobile, a manoeuvrable spacecraft the corporate plans to promote to the Pentagon and industrial clients for nationwide safety and satellite tv for pc servicing missions.
Getting the spacecraft to its meant orbit on an inaugural rocket launch can be a uncommon achievement for an area firm. “If we might try this, that might be an excellent success,” Bezos mentioned. “Touchdown the booster can be icing on the cake.”
Billions of {dollars}
The event of New Glenn has spanned three Blue Origin CEOs and confronted quite a few delays as Elon Musk’s SpaceX grew into an trade juggernaut with its reusable Falcon 9, the world’s most lively rocket.
Bezos in late 2023 moved to hurry issues up at Blue Origin, prioritising the event of New Glenn and its BE-4 engines. He named Dave Limp, an Amazon veteran, as CEO, who staff say launched a way of urgency to compete with SpaceX.
Learn: Blue Origin names former Amazon government as CEO
New Glenn is greater than twice as highly effective as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and has dozens of buyer launch contracts collectively value billions of {dollars} lined up. — Joey Roulette, (c) 2025 Reuters
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