The long-awaited launch of Blue Origin’s new heavy launch vehicle New Glenn should take place this coming Friday – January 10 at 01:00 local time (09:00 Moscow time). They won’t demand much from the rocket—the payload will be the Blue Ring spacecraft demonstrator, which won’t even leave the second stage. However, the company will try to land the first stage on a barge in the ocean, repeating the success of SpaceX.
Image source: Blue Origin
Despite years of project delays, the giant 98m tall New Glenn rocket was due to launch before the end of last year. However, the deadlines have been shifted to 2025, and the company expects that the event will happen in the next few days. Even before the New Year, the rocket passed a fire test of the first stage engines and a full check before launch. In a day or two it will be delivered to the launch pad to prepare for the flight.
«This is our first flight, and we have carefully prepared for it,” said Blue Origin Senior Vice President Jarrett Jones. “But no ground testing or flight simulation can replace a real launch. It’s time to fly. No matter what happens, we will learn, improve the process and apply this knowledge to future missions.”
The New Glenn rocket is capable of launching 45 tons of payload into low-Earth orbit – twice as much as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It can only be surpassed by Falcon Heavy, which lifts up to 64 tons into LEO. Like the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, the New Glenn rocket’s first stage will be reusable. As part of the first NG-1 mission, the rocket must launch the second stage into orbit – this will be the main goal of the upcoming launch. Landing the first stage on a barge in the ocean is an additional task, but will also be attempted.
«Our key goal is to reach orbit safely,” Blue Origin said in a statement. “We understand that landing a launch vehicle on the first attempt in the Atlantic Ocean is an ambitious task, but we are ready to complete it.”
The second stage will house a demonstrator of the future Blue Ring space platform. It is a multi-mission vehicle for delivering payloads to various orbits as requested by customers. On its first flight, the platform, or rather its command part, will remain inseparable from the second stage and will demonstrate the ability to communicate with the Mission Control Center (MCC).
Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon, founded Blue Origin in 2000. Blue Origin’s BE-4 liquid rocket engines have already been used to propel ULA’s Vulcan rocket into space. The New Glenn first stage has seven of these engines. The collaboration between Blue Origin and ULA is so close that, according to some reports, Bezos’ company could absorb ULA. But that’s another story.