Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket Successfully Launches on Test Flight
After a delay due to ice buildup, Jeff Bezos's space venture sends its New Glenn rocket toward orbit in a major milestone.
Cape Canaveral, Florida – Blue Origin’s highly anticipated New Glenn rocket successfully launched from Florida, marking a significant milestone for Jeff Bezos’s space exploration company. The mission, which is a critical step for Blue Origin’s ambitions in the space industry, took off in the early hours of Thursday morning from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at around 2 a.m. local time (07:00 GMT).
Standing 98 meters (321.5 feet) tall, New Glenn is a behemoth of modern space engineering, equipped with a reusable first-stage booster. This test flight was the second attempt after an earlier launch was scrubbed on Monday due to ice accumulation on a propellant line.
With no technical issues reported before Thursday's launch, Blue Origin pushed ahead with its mission. The rocket's first-stage booster made a successful landing in the Atlantic Ocean, while the second stage continued its journey toward orbit.
This test flight is part of Blue Origin’s decade-long, multibillion-dollar project to develop a heavy-lift rocket capable of taking large payloads into space. Until now, the company had focused on suborbital flights for space tourism, but with the launch of New Glenn, it is taking a significant leap into the competitive world of orbital spaceflight.
"The thing we’re most nervous about is the booster landing," said Amazon founder and Blue Origin’s founder Jeff Bezos in a pre-launch interview with Reuters.
The development of New Glenn has encountered numerous delays, spanning three different Blue Origin CEOs. It has faced competition from SpaceX, which, under the leadership of Elon Musk, has established itself as a leader in the rocket industry with its reusable Falcon 9 rocket – the world’s most frequently launched rocket.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn, however, represents a bold step in its quest to carve out a significant presence in the evolving space industry, setting the stage for future missions to the Earth’s orbit and beyond.