A New Day for New Glenn

Image Credit:  Blue Origin Media

Cape Canaveral S.F.S. FL. – After years and years of development and anticipation, the massive “New Glenn” fired its seven BE-4 engines and the rocket rose slowly from Launch Complex 36 at 2:03 AM EST. This launch came after both technical and weather delays, but this morning, new history was made. This mission, also known as NG-1 carried the company’s Blue Ring Pathfinder (DarkSky-1) payload and marked the rocket’s first National Security Space Launch (NSSL) certification flight.

While several objectives were hoped for including simply launching this never flown rocket, achieving orbit was the goal most hoped for. This hope was realized on this maiden flight. Another objective and hope would be the successful first time landing of the first stage booster on the recovery ship Jacklyn. Blue Origin had fully hoped to guide New Glenn’s first-stage rocket booster back to a safe landing on a seafaring platform — named for Jeff Bezos’ mother a few minutes after takeoff however that did not happen with this first attempt and was not the primary focus.

New Glenn aims to be a rocket of reusability and looks to the future of rapid turnaround and launch cadence and this launch is just one step towards these goals.

In a statement from Blue Origin: “The second stage is in its final orbit following two successful burns of the BE-3U engines. The Blue Ring Pathfinder is receiving data and performing well. (however) We lost the booster during descent.” In an additional Blue Origin statement: “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.”

Florida and the Space Coast continue to amaze the world in both variety of companies and rockets that are coming to and rising from our shores here at the cape and on into space. Setting record paces in 2024, 2025 will be a very busy one indeed as more and more launches will soar towards orbit and to the Moon and beyond. Story by: Michael Howard We Report Space images by: Michael Seeley and Graham Smith