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New Glenn

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos said he is spending $1 billion or more annually on his Blue Origin space venture.

New Glenn safely reached its intended orbit during the NG-1 mission, accomplishing the primary objective. New Glenn’s seven BE-4 engines ignited on January 16, 2025, at 2:03 a.m. EST (0703 UTC) from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The second stage was in its final orbit following two successful burns of the BE-3U engines. The Blue Ring Pathfinder was receiving data and performing well. The booster was lost during descent.

“I’m incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt,” said Dave Limp, CEO, Blue Origin. “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.”

New Glenn is foundational to advancing our customers’ critical missions as well as our own. The vehicle underpins our efforts to establish sustained human presence on the Moon, harness in-space resources, provide multi-mission, multi-orbit mobility through Blue Ring, and establish destinations in low Earth orbit. Future New Glenn missions will carry the Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander and the Mark 2 crewed lander to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

The program has several vehicles in production and multiple years of orders. Customers include NASA, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, and several telecommunications providers, among others. Blue Origin is certifying New Glenn with the U.S. Space Force for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program to meet emerging national security objectives.

"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."

The New Glenn family of orbital launch vehicles will carry astronauts and payloads to low-Earth orbit destinations and beyond. Similar to Blue Origin's suborbital vehicle, the first stage booster will separate and land back on Earth. Expendable second and third stages will propel the capsule into orbit, toward scientific research and exploration. At the completion of its flight, the capsule will reenter Earth’s atmosphere and land under parachutes, enabling reuse, improved reliability and lower cost access to space.

Rockets have been used for many years to launch human and non-human payloads into orbit. Such rockets delivered the first humans to space and to the moon, and have launched countless satellites into the earth's orbit and beyond. Such rockets are used to propel unmanned space probes and more recently to deliver structures, supplies, and personnel to the orbiting international space station. One continual challenge associated with rocket missions is the reusability of the system.

New Glenn is a step forward in mass and range, and its three-stage version will be able to fly missions beyond low-Earth orbit. New Glenn is 23 feet [7 meters] in diameter and lifts off with 3.85 million pounds of thrust from seven BE-4 engines. Burning liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen, these are the same BE-4 engines that will power United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan rocket. The two-stage New Glenn is 270 feet [82 m] tall, and its second stage is powered by a single, vacuum-optimized BE-4 engine. The three-stage New Glenn is 313 feet [95 m] tall. A single, vacuum-optimized BE-3 engine, burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, powers its third stage. The booster and the second stage are identical in both variants.

Fuel is carried in tanks positioned within (or forming part of) the external surface of the vehicle. Liquid propellant tanks configured and suitable for launch vehicles, have shapes that are customized so as to reduce the dynamic effects of sloshing fluid within the tank. For example, the tank can be varied by modulating the radius of the tank so as to reduce the destabilizing effects of the sloshing fluid. The fuel tank can include internal slosh baffles that are molded into a plastic tank liner. This arrangement can eliminate the need to mechanically fasten baffles inside the tank. In other embodiments, the baffles can be formed from within the tank. The shape of the tank can be configured to enhance and/or optimize the propellant's center of mass location within the vehicle so as to reduce the destabilizing effects that might otherwise result when liquid propellant within the tank sloshes during normal operations.

The BE-4 engine will be used on the New Glenn family of launch vehicles. The first stage will use seven BE-4 engines and the second stage will use a single BE-4 engine.

The BE-4 uses oxygen-rich staged combustion of liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas to produce 550,000 lb. of thrust. The BE-4 is currently under development and will be flight-ready in 2017. Liquefied natural gas is commercially available, affordable, and highly efficient for spaceflight. Unlike other rocket fuels, such as kerosene, liquefied natural gas can be used to pressurize a rocket’s propellant tanks. This is called autogenous pressurization and eliminates the need for costly and complex pressurization systems, like helium. Liquefied natural gas also leaves no soot byproducts as kerosene does, simplifying engine reuse. United Launch Alliance (ULA)–maker of the Atlas V and Delta IV launch systems–has chosen the BE-4 to power its next generation Vulcan launch vehicle.

Blue Origin built a new facility dedicated solely to testing the BE-4. The company was testing components, including the subscale oxygen-rich preburner, staged combustion of the preburner, and main injector assembly. Powerpack testing of the turbopumps and main valves was underway, as is staged combustion testing of the subscale oxygen-rich preburner and main injector assembly. Full engine testing would begin in 2016.

The vehicle includes a deployable or otherwise movable deceleration surface (e.g., a flare surface) positioned toward the end of the vehicle. The deployable surface can be stowed during ascent and deployed during descent to stabilize and reduce the speed of the vehicle during a tail-down descent and landing. The deployable deceleration surface can elevate the aerodynamic center of pressure of the vehicle (e.g., above the center of gravity of the vehicle) in such a manner as to improve stability and/or improve the ratio of vehicle aerodynamic lift to drag during a tail-down descent and landing. Fins toward the aft end of the vehicle can act as stabilizers and/or control surfaces during ascent, and can also act as stabilizers and/or control surfaces during descent.

After the engines have completed the boost phase, the deployable surface can be deployed to slow the descent of the vehicle. The deployable surface can improve vehicle stability as the vehicle descends (tail-down) by increasing vehicle drag and by reducing the terminal velocity of the vehicle before the engines restart prior to a vertical landing. In a particular embodiment, the deployable surface is used only once during flight, and is then retracted by the ground crew after the vehicle has landed. The fins can be used to control and steer the vehicle during descent and landing. As the vehicle approaches the landing site, the engines can be restarted to further slow the vehicle down. The landing gear are then deployed for final touchdown.

Blue Origin has several New Glenn vehicles in production and a full customer manifest. Customers include NASA, Amazon's Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, several telecommunications providers, and a mix of U.S. government customers. Blue Origin is certifying New Glenn with the U.S. Space Force for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program to meet emerging national security objectives.

New Glenn’s inaugural mission (NG-1) targeted no earlier than Friday, January 10, from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The three-hour launch window opens at 1 a.m. EST (0600 UTC). NG-1 is the first National Security Space Launch certification flight.

The payload is the Blue Ring Pathfinder to test Blue Ring’s core flight, ground systems, and operational capabilities as part of the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU) Orbital Logistics prototype effort. The key objective is to reach orbit safely. We know landing the booster on our first try offshore in the Atlantic is ambitious—but we’re going for it. “This is our first flight and we’ve prepared rigorously for it,” said Jarrett Jones, SVP, New Glenn. “But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations are a replacement for flying this rocket. It’s time to fly. No matter what happens, we’ll learn, refine, and apply that knowledge to our next launch.”