At 2:03 am EST on January 16, Blue Origin’s New Glenn lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket is 98 meters (322 feet) tall, among the tallest around, and this first launch was a demonstration as part of the US Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program. It tested the Blue Ring spacecraft platform as well as the flight and ground system.
This first launch was also a test for the reusable first stage, which was supposed to land on a barge, the Landing Platform Vessel, floating in the Atlantic. Landing offshore on its first try was a tall order, and in fact, the booster was given a funny name: So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance.
“I’m incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt,” Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, said in a statement. “We knew landing our booster, So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance, on the first try was an ambitious goal. We’ll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring. Thank you to all of Team Blue for this incredible milestone.”
Blue Origin already has several customers lined up, including one of Jeff Bezos’ other enterprises, Amazon’s Project Kuiper – a megaconstellation of satellites with over 3,000 of them. Megaconstellations have been criticized significantly for the increasing light pollution and radio interference they bring to Earth, as well as the increasing chance of a collision in orbit between so many new satellites.
New Glenn will also be used to launch Blue Moon, the lunar lander that is supposed to alternate with SpaceX’s Starship during the Artemis mission that will bring back people on the Moon.
“Today marks a new era for Blue Origin and for commercial space,” said Jarrett Jones, Senior Vice President, New Glenn. “We’re focused on ramping our launch cadence and manufacturing rates. My heartfelt thanks to everyone at Blue Origin for the tremendous amount of work in making today’s success possible, and to our customers and the space community for their continuous support. We felt that immensely today.”
