Blue Origin Blasts New Glenn Rocket Into Orbit on the First TryBlue Origin Blasts New Glenn Rocket Into Orbit on the First Try
They didn’t stick the booster’s landing on the drone ship, but New Glenn did put its payload into orbit.

At a Glance
- New Glenn safely reached its intended orbit during the NG-1 mission.
- The second stage reached its final orbit following two successful burns of the BE-3U engines.
- The Pathfinder Blue Ring payload includes a communications array, power systems, and a flight computer.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos finally got his Blue Origin rocket company into orbit following several years of sub-orbital flight by the company’s New Shepard rocket (named for the first US astronaut, Alan Shepard, who flew a sub-orbital flight). The immense New Glenn rocket (named for the first orbital astronaut, John Glenn), lit its seven BE-4 engines at 02:03 EST on Jan. 16, departing from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The 320-foot rocket lifted off the pad with the slow majesty of a Saturn V moon rocket of the Apollo program, its 3.8 million pounds of thrust carrying a Blue Origin Blue Ring Pathfinder payload into low earth orbit on a flight that checks off requirements toward eligibility for US national security launch contracts.
The launch went flawlessly, but the company only said it “lost” the booster on the attempted return for landing during descent. “I’m incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt,” said Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp. “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.”
The first-stage booster was to have fallen back to earth after separating from the second stage, lighting its three middle engines for a deceleration burn at 220,000 feet to slow its entry into the atmosphere. It would have relit those engines again at 9,000 feet for a final landing burn for 20 seconds, then switched to the center engine only for touch-down on the drone ship, Jacklyn.
The company envisions launching Large satellites, dual payloads, orbital vehicles, large constellation dispensers, and lunar landers using New Glenn.
Blue Origin says that it has several more New Glenn boosters in production to address “multiple years of orders” from customers including NASA, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, and telecommunications providers. Lunar missions are also planned for New Glenn, as it is slated to carry the Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander and the Mark 2 crewed lander to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
The Blue Ring Pathfinder was developed by Blue Origin’s In-Space Systems business unit to test Blue Ring’s core flight, ground systems, and operational capabilities as part of the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU) Orbital Logistics prototype effort.
It includes a communications array, power systems, and a flight computer affixed to a secondary payload adapter ring and will validate Blue Ring’s communications capabilities from orbit to ground.
The six-month 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 Ring will be a space ferry that can maneuver to multiple orbits and locations, deploy and host payloads, and perform onboard computing and communications for a variety of customers. It can host 3,000-kilogram payloads such as ESPA and ESPA Grande class satellites, across its 13 docking ports and top deck, navigating them to destinations in geosynchronous orbit, cislunar orbit, and interplanetary space.
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