Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin readies powerful New Glenn rocket for maiden flight

[ad_1] Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin readied the corporate's highly effective New Glenn rocket for its long-awaited maiden flight early Sunday, kicking off a high-stakes bid to compete head-to-head with Elon Musk's SpaceX and its business dominating Falcon household of rockets.

Whereas a couple of profitable take a look at flight might be wanted to reveal the reliability wanted for launches of pricey NASA probes, high-priority nationwide safety payloads and different industrial spacecraft, the New Glenn, 10 years after Bezos introduced the mission, is anticipated to be a viable different.

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket atop launch complicated 36 on the Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station, awaiting its maiden launch. Blue Origin

Mounted atop pad 36 on the Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station, the 321-foot-tall rocket is scheduled for blast off at 1 a.m. EST Sunday, climate allowing, the opening of a three-hour window.

Like SpaceX's Falcon rockets, the primary stage of the New Glenn, powered by seven methane-burning BE-4 engines producing a mixed 3.8 million kilos of thrust, was designed to be reusable.

After boosting the rocket's higher stage out of the decrease environment three minutes and 10 seconds after launch, the 188-foot-tall first stage will separate and try and land on a 380-foot-long custom-built ship named after Bezos' mom, Jacklyn, that might be stationed downrange within the Atlantic Ocean.

Tough seas prompted Blue Origin to delay the flight final week, however circumstances appeared extra favorable Saturday and mission managers pressed forward with plans for an early Sunday liftoff.

From launch to landing: 9 minutes and 28 seconds. Whereas SpaceX examined its Falcon 9 touchdown system with ocean splashdowns earlier than making an attempt an precise touchdown, Blue Origin is making the try on the rocket's maiden flight. Appropriately sufficient, the corporate named the booster "So You are Telling Me There's A Probability."

Whereas the 23-foot-wide first stage is powered by liquified pure gasoline, the 88-foot-tall higher stage is provided with two hydrogen-burning BE-3U engines that generate a mixed 320,000 kilos of thrust. They are often restarted in area as much as 3 times, enabling the stage to position payloads in particularly demanding orbits.

The New Glenn's carbon-composite nostril fairing, which encapsulates payloads through the climb to area, gives 16,184 cubic toes of quantity, giant sufficient to deal with a complete New Shepard rocket, the booster Blue Origin makes use of to launch area vacationers on sub-orbital flights out of the decrease environment.

For its maiden flight, the New Glenn carried a Blue Origin-designed spacecraft referred to as Blue Ring, a form of area tug that may host or deploy a number of satellites in numerous orbits whereas offering onboard laptop help and even servicing.

The flight plan referred to as for the higher stage and the hooked up Blue Ring take a look at car to succeed in an elliptical orbit with a excessive level of about 12,000 miles and a low level of round 1,500 miles. The mission is anticipated to final 5 hours and 50 minutes from begin to end.

The New Glenn flight profile features a first stage landing on a Blue Origin touchdown ship within the Atlantic Ocean whereas the rocket's higher stage propels a take a look at payload referred to as Blue Ring Pathfinder right into a extremely elliptical orbit. Blue Origin

Blue Ring is provided with roll-out photo voltaic arrays stretching 144 toes, with 13 ports for hosted and deployable payloads and might accommodate satellites or different payloads weighing as much as 2.5 tons on its higher deck. There aren't any such payloads on the preliminary "pathfinder" flight, however the spacecraft might be totally checked out in orbit.

SpaceX started launching its Falcon 9 rockets in 2010 and now dominates the worldwide industrial launch market, firing off 134 Falcon-family rockets final yr and 5 thus far in 2025. SpaceX has efficiently recovered first stage boosters 395 occasions.

SpaceX is also constructing a gargantuan new rocket -- the Tremendous Heavy-Starship -- with a seventh take a look at flight on faucet as early as Monday from the corporate's Boca Chica, Texas, launch web site. A variant of the rocket's Starship higher stage is being constructed for NASA to hold astronauts from lunar orbit to the floor as a part of the Artemis program.

Some 225 Falcon 9 flights have launched 7,700 Starlink web satellites since 2019 with hundreds extra deliberate. The corporate already has thousands and thousands of consumers all over the world, giving it a formidable head begin over potential rivals.

Amazon plans its personal fleet of greater than 3,232 broadband relay stations referred to as Venture Kuiper . The corporate says it has booked as much as 95 launches with Blue Origin, the European consortium Arianespace, United Launch Alliance and even SpaceX to get the information relay stations into orbit.

"As soon as deployed, the Kuiper System will serve particular person households, in addition to faculties, hospitals, companies, catastrophe aid efforts, authorities companies and different organizations working in locations with out dependable broadband," Amazon says on its web site.

Whether or not Amazon can succeed in opposition to SpaceX within the space-based web companies market stays to be seen. However Blue Origin's New Glenn will present an alternative choice to SpaceX in the case of launch companies.

The rocket was designed from the bottom as much as be "human rated," enabling astronaut flights sooner or later sooner or later. If profitable, the rocket will finally be used to launch NASA area probes, categorised army payloads, industrial satellites, lunar cargo ships and even piloted moon landers for NASA.

"The New Glenn rocket is all about considerably lowering the price of entry to area," mentioned Syracuse College professor and former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. "This can give SpaceX some severe competitors. ... These are thrilling occasions within the area enterprise."

Extra William Harwood

Invoice Harwood has been overlaying the U.S. area program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press Worldwide and now as a guide for CBS Information.