Success for Bezos and New Glenn
January 16, 2025
By Chris Forrester
The Jeff Bezos-backed New Glenn reusable rocket made a successful debut flight (NG-1) just after 07.00 GMT from Launch Pad 36 at Cape Canaveral in Florida on January 16th. The launch schedule suffered a couple of pauses including a 20 minute ‘hold’, and then a further 30-minute delay when a boat entered the splash-down zone.
Following separation, the rocket’s first stage was autonomously designed to a landing platform located 620 miles (1000 kms) downrange in the Atlantic. This didn’t happen, and as this is written the technicians were researching what happened to the booster.
The two BE-3U engines ignite, propelling the second stage into space. The fairing separated and the Blue Ring Pathfinder payload, which will remain affixed to the second stage throughout the duration of the mission, will be placed in a medium Earth orbit (MEO).
New Glenn is a fresh addition to the USA’s rocket launch manifest. It can be added to the now regular flights by Elon Musk’s Falcons and the emerging Starships and also to the United Launch Alliance’s craft. The rocket stands at 320 ft/98 metres tall.
However, New Glenn has a massive seven metre payload area, twice the volume of smaller, five-metre class (ie Falcons) payload fairings, and thus customers have more flexibility to package their payload in new ways. The rocket can handle more than 13 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbit and a massive 45 tonnes to low Earth orbit.
Its first booster stage is fully recoverable. New Glenn is built, integrated, launched, refurbished, and re-flown within a nine-mile (14 km) radius of the rocket factory. Located in Exploration Park just outside the gates of Kennedy Space Center, the process starts at Blue Origin’s state-of-the-art manufacturing complex, which houses the vehicle’s fabrication, integration, and operations facilities, as well as New Glenn Mission Control.