Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space dreams are taking flight on a new level.
On Thursday, Bezos’ Blue Origin company launched its big rocket, called New Glenn. It lifted off at 2:30 a.m. ET from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and the second stage quickly reached orbit. The Blue Ring Pathfinder technology platform on board was “receiving data and performing well,” Blue Origin said.
The company also hoped to retrieve the rocket booster after the launch, but it was lost during descent.
“We knew 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 at our next launch this spring,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said in a statement.
This inaugural flight for New Glenn could open a fresh chapter in commercial spaceflight, placing Blue Origin in competition with Elon Musk’s prolific SpaceX.
New Glenn’s first launch
The mission is fittingly called NG-1. The original window for takeoff was on Jan. 10, but weather conditions triggered an initial postponement to Jan. 13. Blue Origin got as far as a countdown before scrubbing the launch.
Blue Origin’s payload (the cargo or spacecraft on board) for NG-1 is Blue Ring Pathfinder, a spacecraft platform technology demonstration.
A key goal for Blue Origin is to catch the New Glenn rocket booster out at sea on a barge named Jacklyn.
“The pathfinder will validate Blue Ring’s communications capabilities from orbit to ground,” 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 space vehicle.”
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-proven Falcon and Falcon Heavy rockets, parts of New Glenn are designed to be reusable. That includes landing the rocket’s booster on a floating platform in the ocean.
Blue Origin’s launch history
Blue Origin’s New Shepard launches from Texas.
Blue Origin has sent multiple launches to suborbital space with its New Shepard spacecraft. Bezos himself, as well as celebrities like William Shatner and Michael Strahan, have taken rides on New Shepard.
New Shepard is named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space, while New Glenn honors John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth.
At more than 320 feet high, New Glenn is a hulk compared with 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 postponements, especially with unproven hardware on the launchpad.
A lot could go right and a lot could go wrong.
“This is our first flight and we’ve prepared rigorously for it,” said Blue Origin vice president Jarrett Jones said in early January. “But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations are a replacement for flying this rocket. It’s time to fly. No matter what happens, we’ll learn, refine and apply that knowledge to our next launch.”