Cape Canaveral, Florida – Blue Origin launched its massive new rocket on its first test flight Thursday, sending a prototype satellite into orbit thousands of miles above Earth.
Named after the first American to orbit the planet, the New Glenn rocket lifted off from Florida, rising from the same pad used by NASA to launch its Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft half a century ago.
The 98-meter (320-foot) tall rocket, which had been in development for years and has significant funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, carried an experimental platform designed to host satellites or release them into orbit.
All seven main engines ignited at takeoff as the rocket streaked across the early morning sky, drawing applause from spectators on nearby beaches. Company employees erupted in cheers and frantic applause once the craft successfully reached orbit 13 minutes later, a milestone instantly praised by SpaceX’s Elon Musk.
Bezos, who was present at the launch from Mission Control, stood with his arms crossed as he watched through a large window as the New Glenn rose.
“We did it! In orbit,” said Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp via the X platform.
For this test, the satellite was expected to remain within the second phase while orbiting the Earth. The mission was expected to last six hours, and the second phase would then be in safe conditions to maintain a high, distant orbit, in accordance with NASA practices to minimize space debris.
The first stage booster failed to land on a barge in the Atlantic minutes after takeoff so it could be recycled, but the company stressed that its main objective was for the test satellite to reach orbit. Before the flight, Bezos declared that it was “a little crazy” to even try to get the booster to the right place on the first try.
“Great night for the Blue team. Let’s go for spring and try landing again,” Limp added.
New Glenn was originally scheduled to take off before dawn on Monday, but ice buildup on the critical pipeline caused a delay. The rocket is built to transport spacecraft and, eventually, astronauts to Earth orbit and the Moon.
Founded 25 years ago by Bezos, Blue Origin has been taking paying passengers to the edge of space since 2021, including himself. Smaller rockets named after the first American in space, Alan Shepard, are used for the short trips from Texas. The New Glenn, which pays tribute to John Glenn, is five times taller.
1 / 10 | Images: Jeff Bezos is the second billionaire to reach space. Jeff Bezos traveled with three other crew members this morning to space, on his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. -Tony Gutierrez
Blue Origin invested more than $1 billion in the New Glenn launch pad, rebuilding the historic Complex 36 of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The platform is 14 kilometers (9 miles) from the company’s control centers and rocket factory, outside NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Blue Origin plans between six and eight New Glenn flights this year, if all goes well, with the next planned for this spring.
In an interview over the weekend, he declined to reveal his personal investment in the show. He noted that he does not see Blue Origin as competition for SpaceX, which has had a dominant position in rocket launches for years.
“There is room for many winners,” Bezos said from the rocket factory over the weekend, adding that this is the “beginning of this new phase of the space age, where we are all going to work together as an industry… to reduce the cost of accessing space.”
New Glenn is the latest in a series of big new rockets launched in recent years, including United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan, Europe’s improved Ariane 6 and NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, successor. of Saturn V to send astronauts to the Moon.
The largest of all, at approximately 400 feet (123 meters), is SpaceX’s Starship. Musk said the seventh test flight of the completed device could take place later Thursday from Texas. It hopes to repeat what was accomplished in October, when they captured the booster returning to the launch pad with giant mechanical arms.
Starship is the vehicle NASA plans to use to take astronauts to the Moon later this decade. In the first two lunar landings of its Artemis program, which follows the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, crews will descend from lunar orbit to the surface in Starships.
Blue Origin’s lander, called Blue Moon, will debut on the third lunar landing with astronauts.
Bill Nelson, administrator of the US space agency, promoted competition between lunar landers, a strategy similar to hiring two companies to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Nelson will leave office when President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.
Trump has named tech billionaire Jared Isaacman as a candidate to lead NASA. Isaacman, who has twice gone to space on privately funded SpaceX flights, must be confirmed by the Senate.
New Glenn’s debut was supposed to send twin spacecraft to Mars for NASA. But the agency pulled them from the planned flight last October when it became clear that the rocket would not be ready in time. They will still fly on a New Glenn rocket, but not before spring at the earliest. The two small probes, called Escapade, are intended to study the Martian atmosphere and its magnetic environment as they orbit the red planet.