Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has landed the booster of its New Glenn mega-rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean on just its second attempt — making it the second company to perform such a feat, following Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
It’s an accomplishment that will help the new rocket system become an option to send larger payloads to space, the Moon, and beyond.
Thursday’s launch wasn’t just about the landing attempt, though. Roughly 34 minutes after takeoff, the upper stage of New Glenn successfully deployed the rocket’s first commercial payload: twin spacecraft for NASA that will go travel to Mars to study the red planet’s atmosphere.
The pair of achievements are remarkable for the second-ever launch of such a massive rocket system. And it could put Blue Origin in position to compete with SpaceX, which dominates the world’s launch market with its Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship rockets.
New Glenn’s first launch was in January, and Blue Origin experienced a number of delays in getting the second rocket to launch. The company had hoped to make a second attempt as early as the spring, but pushed it back multiple times. New Glenn finally made it to the launch pad on Sunday, but weather and solar storms delayed it further.
The rocket finally took off from Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Thursday at around 3:55 p.m. ET. At about four minutes into the flight, the second stage separated and headed further into space, while the New Glenn booster began its journey back towards Earth. Roughly 10 minutes into the flight, the 189-foot-tall booster touched down on the platform.
Blue Origin had attempted to bring the New Glenn booster back on the rocket’s first flight in January. But the booster exploded before it had a chance to land on the drone ship. The company worked with the Federal Aviation Administration to identify and make a number of fixes to the rocket, and the company was confident it could stick the landing on attempt number two.
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The ability to land a booster like this is an important step in making the rocket system reusable, which lowers the cost for customers — a capability that SpaceX has had mastered for years. The next thing Blue Origin will have to demonstrate is the ability to refurbish the rocket booster and launch it again.
These are not only crucial capabilities for commercial customers, but for government missions as well. Blue Origin has had its eyes on the Moon for years, and is currently developing a lunar lander. So is SpaceX, with Starship. But the government has asked them to speed up these programs, and acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy recently criticized SpaceX for moving too slowly.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp recently said in response that his company “will move heaven and Earth” to help NASA get back to the Moon faster. But it can’t do that without successfully proving out all of New Glenn’s capabilities.
Thursday’s launch went a long way toward accomplishing that overarching goal.