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Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket finally took off yesterday, marking the Jeff Bezos-run space firm’s first major rocket launch that could one day transport payloads and astronauts.
The Big Picture: Bezos has been in a heated race with Elon Musk and his SpaceX firm to explore the stars. Musk is much further ahead, but Bezos is betting that there will be enough business for more than one company to thrive — a win for the private space industry and the US government relying more and more on it.
Behind the Launch: A few days ago, Bezos said, “All of the things we want to do in the future rely on New Glenn.”
He’s likely breathing a big sigh of relief right about now.
- After a month of delays (and years of development), the 320-foot rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and reached orbit.
- But the rocket’s booster didn’t successfully land back on a ship out in the Atlantic Ocean — a vital part of Blue Origin’s mission to bring down the cost of space travel. It’s something SpaceX’s Starship pulled off on its last mission.
- New Glenn will eventually ferry satellites to space (including Amazon’s Project Kuiper) and astronauts for both private missions and NASA’s lunar-focused Artemis missions.
- This first flight also served as a certification system for the Pentagon to get clearance for flying up national security satellites in its payloads.
The Future: New Glenn is a huge step up for Blue Origin, which has been using a much smaller rocket for space tourism trips and other research missions. The company hopes to launch New Glenn up to eight times this year. Expect the space race with Musk to really heat up in 2025 as SpaceX also plans more tests of Starship.
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