Jeff Bezos’ area firm is about to take an enormous leap towards reusable orbital rockets.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is poised to carry off for the third time ever on Sunday (April 19) — however for the primary time with beforehand flown {hardware}. The mission, known as NG-3, will ship BlueBird 7, a direct-to-cellphone web satellite tv for pc, to low Earth orbit (LEO), flying the identical first-stage booster core that launched NG-2, however with new engines.
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If all goes in accordance with plan, New Glenn’s first stage will shut off its engines and separate from the higher a part of the rocket about 3.5 minutes into flight, touchdown, hopefully, on Blue Origin’s droneship, “Jacklyn,” within the Atlantic Ocean round six minutes later.
BlueBird 7 would be the second “Block 2” satellite tv for pc within the web constellation of Texas-based firm AST SpaceMobile. Its predecessor, BlueBird 6, launched on an Indian LVM3 rocket final December. BlueBird 6 is among the largest satellites in area, with an antenna that spans 2,400 sq. ft (223 sq. meters). BlueBird 7 has the identical dimensions.
BlueBirds 1-5, the “Block 1” model, whereas sizable in their very own proper, pale compared; their antennas cowl a extra modest 693 sq. ft (64.4 m) apiece.
This third launch of New Glenn is a significant milestone for Blue Origin, which has designed the rocket’s first stage to be totally reusable. Such a functionality would enable the corporate to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship rockets, the one orbital-capable boosters so far with confirmed reusability.
New Glenn stands 322 ft (98 meters) tall — about the identical dimension because the NASA House Launch System (SLS) rocket that launched the Artemis 2 mission across the moon, and practically 100 ft (30 m) taller than the 230-foot (70-m) Falcon 9.
New Glenn’s first stage is powered by seven BE-4 engines, which burn a gas combination of liquid oxygen and liquid methane, often called methalox — the identical gas utilized by the 33 SpaceX-built Raptor engines that energy Starship’s Tremendous Heavy booster. And proper now, each launch autos have to show themselves.
Blue Origin is counting on New Glenn to launch the corporate’s Blue Moon lander, one among two industrial autos NASA chosen to land astronauts on the moon as a part of the company’s Artemis program.
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SpaceX had been NASA’s first selection for a crewed lunar lander, with Starship slated to place astronauts on the moon on the Artemis 3 mission. However delays within the improvement of each corporations’ spacecraft and a current shakeup of Artemis structure has put Blue Moon again within the highlight.
Artemis 3 will now not go to the moon. NASA now desires astronauts aboard its Orion spacecraft to observe rendezvous and docking maneuvers in Earth orbit with both or each of the lunar landers, and has indicated a willingness to fly with whichever is prepared as soon as it is time to launch — hopefully, in mid-2027.
Each landers have an inventory of {qualifications} and expertise demonstrations to finish earlier than NASA certifies both to assist astronauts aboard, comparable to on-orbit cryogenic gas switch and uncrewed lunar landings, however every is making progress.
SpaceX is presently performing prelaunch checks on the Model 3 (V3) of its Tremendous Heavy booster and Starship higher stage, that are anticipated to carry off on the car’s twelfth take a look at flight within the coming weeks. In the meantime, the Mark 1 (Mk1) Blue Moon car lately accomplished a stint inside the huge vacuum chamber at NASA’s Johnson House Middle in Houston and will probably be shipped to the Kennedy House Middle, in Florida, for additional testing.
New Glenn, too, has extra floor to cowl. Blue Origin has loads using on the NG-3 launch — extra than simply the huge BlueBird 7 payload. The primary reuse of a New Glenn first stage, even when its engines are new, is a major step towards the corporate’s final imaginative and prescient for the rocket, whose first levels are designed to fly not less than 25 occasions apiece.
Of the 2 New Glenn missions so far, solely NG-2 efficiently landed its first stage aboard the Jacklyn droneship. That mission launched NASA’s ESCAPADE probes on a mission to Mars in November 2025. New Glenn debuted in January 2025, on a mission that reached orbit efficiently however didn’t pull off a first-stage touchdown.
The NG-2 booster, dubbed, “By no means Inform Me the Odds,” was refurbished and built-in with the brand new set of BE-4s and the remainder of the launch car earlier this month, in accordance with Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, in an April 7 put up on X.
“With our first refurbished booster we elected to exchange all seven engines and take a look at out just a few upgrades together with a thermal safety system on one of many engine nozzles. We plan to make use of the engines we flew for NG-2 on future flights,” he stated in one other put up, on April 13.
New Glenn was rolled out to the pad at LC-36 on April 13, the place Blue Origin carried out a collection of checks main as much as a 19-second static take a look at firing of the rocket’s engines on April 16.
