Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launches massive New Glenn rocket on first test flight

CAPE CANAVER, Fla. (AP) — Blue Origin launched its massive new rocket on its first test flight Thursday, placing a prototype satellite into orbit thousands of miles above Earth.

The New Glenn rocket, named for the first American to orbit Earth, blasted off from Florida from the same launch pad used to launch NASA’s Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft half a century ago.

The 320-foot (98-meter) rocket, which took several years to build with significant funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, carries an experimental platform designed to carry satellites or Release it to the appropriate track. When the spacecraft successfully entered orbit, company employees erupted in cheers and wild applause.

During this test, the satellite is expected to remain within the second stage as it orbits the Earth. The mission is expected to last six hours before placing the second stage in a safe state to remain in a high and remote orbit, in line with NASA’s approach to reducing space debris.

The first-stage booster failed to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean minutes after liftoff and could be recovered, but the company stressed the primary goal was to get the test satellite into orbit. “What a great day,” said Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin’s launch commentator.

New Glenn was scheduled to take off before dawn Monday, but ice on key pipes caused delays. The rocket is designed to carry spacecraft and eventually astronauts into orbit and the moon.

Blue Origin, founded by Bezos 25 years ago, has been flying paying passengers, including himself, to the edge of space since 2021. The short hop from Texas uses a smaller rocket named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. New Glenn was built in honor of John Glenn and was five times as tall.

Blue Origin has invested more than $1 billion in the New Glenn launch site to redevelop the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s historic Complex 36. The launch pad is 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the company’s control center and rocket factory, outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Bezos, who was involved in the launch from Mission Control, declined to disclose his personal investment in the project. He said he doesn’t see Blue Origin competing with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has long been the dominant player in rocket launches.

Blue Origin expects to fly six to eight New Glenn flights this year, with the next one coming this spring if all goes well.

“There’s room for a lot of winners here,” Bezos said at the Rocket Factory over the weekend, adding that this was “the very, very beginning of a new phase of the space age and we’re going to work together as an industry…” The cost of space.

New Glenn is the latest in a series of large new rockets launched in recent years, including United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, Europe’s upgraded Ariane 6 rocket and NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) ), the system that was the successor to the Saturn V and was used to launch astronauts into space.

The largest rocket is SpaceX’s Starship, which is about 400 feet (123 meters) tall. Elon Musk said the seventh test flight of a complete rocket could take place later Thursday in Texas. He hopes to repeat what he accomplished in October, using a giant robotic arm to grab the returning booster on the launch pad.

NASA plans to use Starship to send astronauts to the moon later this decade. Following the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, the first two moon landings of NASA’s Artemis program will see astronauts descend from lunar orbit to the lunar surface in a Starship.

Blue Origin’s lander, known as Blue Moon, will make its debut during the third astronaut landing on the moon.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has promoted a similar strategy in the race for a lunar lander by hiring two companies to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Nelson will resign after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.

Trump appoints tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Isaacman, who twice flew into orbit on his own privately funded SpaceX flights, must be approved by the Senate.

New Glenn’s debut was originally to send twin spacecraft to Mars for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). But when the space agency discovered the rocket wouldn’t be ready in time, they canceled the planned flight last October. They will still fly on the New Glenn rocket, but not until spring at the earliest. The two small spacecraft, called Escapade, are designed to study the Martian atmosphere and magnetic environment as they orbit the red planet.

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