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COCOA BEACH, Florida — Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket just earned its wings.
New Glenn launched for the first time ever this morning (Jan. 16), rising off a pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here on Florida's Space Coast at 2:03 a.m. EST (0703 GMT). About 12.5 minutes later, the rocket's upper stage reached orbit — the main goal of today's test flight, which the company called NG-1.
"We got to orbit safely,” Ariane Cornell, vice president of in-space systems at Blue Origin, said in the company's launch webcast. "Congratulations, everybody. What a day!"
Blue Origin also tried to land New Glenn's reusable first stage on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, which is nicknamed Jacklyn, after company founder Jeff Bezos' mother. The booster managed to fire up three of its engines in a reentry burn as planned, but it didn't stick the landing.
"We didn't have booster landing, but man, we got close," Cornell said. "We collected so much data."
A successful landing would have been something of a surprise; the company had stressed repeatedly in the leadup to launch that this was a secondary goal that was unlikely to be achieved on NG-1.
Related: Blue Origin: Everything you need to know about the private spaceflight company
Like many rockets, the 320-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn took a long road to the launch pad. Its first flight was initially projected to take place in 2020, but development of the rocket's powerful BE-4 first-stage engines slowed the timeline.
There were a few more delays in the home stretch. Today's liftoff was originally planned for Jan. 10, but Blue Origin pushed things back 72 hours due to rough seas in the projected landing area for the booster. A launch attempt on Jan. 13 was scrubbed due to ice buildup in one of the rocket's power units, and Blue Origin then pushed the next try back to this morning.
New Glenn's reusable first stage could help it compete with SpaceX's venerable Falcon 9, the world's first orbital-class reusable rocket. Blue Origin aims to launch each New Glenn booster at least 25 times and already has customers ranging from NASA, various U.S. government agencies, AST SpaceMobile and other telecommunications companies.
New Glenn has also been tapped to help launch Amazon's Project Kuiper broadband internet satellites, which could become a competitor to SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation. Amazon already has a license to launch over 3,000 Kuiper satellites.
Both Blue Origin and Amazon were founded by Bezos, who has flown to suborbital space aboard the company's smaller New Shepard space tourism rocket.
New Glenn is capable of carrying 50 tons (45 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO). SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, which also features reusable first stage boosters, can lift around 70 tons (64 metric tons) to LEO.
If all goes to plan, NG-1 will help certify the rocket for the U.S. Space Force's National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, which pairs U.S. military and intelligence spacecraft with commercial launch providers. NSSL launches also include GPS, communications and weather satellites that provide data and services to the U.S. government.
New Glenn was initially scheduled to launch NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes on NG-1, but the space agency decided to delay the mission until the rocket proved itself worthy of flight. ESCAPADE is now scheduled to launch no earlier than Spring 2025.
Flying aboard New Glenn's first mission instead was a test version of Blue Origin's upcoming "Blue Ring" spacecraft.
This "Blue Ring Pathfinder" demonstrator is designed to validate Blue Ring's communications, in-space data collection, tracking and command systems while still attached to New Glenn's second stage, Blue Origin wrote in a an NG-1 mission description in December 2024. Such data collection will last for about six hours on NG-1, if all goes to plan.
This debut flight will help Blue Origin refine and develop the production version of the spacecraft for future missions. Blue Ring is being developed as part of the Defense Innovation Unit's (DIU) Orbital Logistics Program. DIU is a U.S. Department of Defense organization that aims to develop and field emerging technologies for national security.
To that end, Blue Origin is developing Blue Ring to fulfill DIU's need for a "heavy utility multi-orbit logistics vehicle," or m-OLV. Blue Ring, or whatever vehicle is eventually chosen to fill that role, will be designed to provide "low-cost, responsive access to geostationary (GEO) and other exotic orbits beyond low Earth orbit," according to a DIU statement.
In other words, Blue Ring will function as a platform for other satellites. It will be capable of carrying about 6,600 pounds (3,000 kilograms) across 13 different payload adapters.
The spacecraft will be able to transport payloads to geostationary orbit, cislunar orbit (orbits close to and around the moon) and even interplanetary orbits, according to a Blue Origin description.
That's all future work, however. The immediate take-home message from today's flight is that a powerful new orbital-class rocket has proved itself in flight.
"The next era of spaceflight at Blue Origin is upon us," Cornell said to close out the NG-1 launch webcast. "We look forward to seeing you soon on our next launch. We're just getting started."
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