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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is ready for its first orbital trip with the New Glenn rocket. Will this threaten the dominance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the orbital launch market?
Blue Origin social media platform
Blue Origin’s rocket, named after a legendary astronaut, is 320 feet (98 meters) tall, about the same as a 32-story building.
“Pointy End!” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp wrote on the X accompanying photos of Glenn Rockett.
The Glenn rocket, with the mission codenamed NG-1, is scheduled to launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:00 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Monday.
SpaceX has ruled the orbital launch market for the past several years with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
Elon Musk’s space company is planning the next orbital test of Starship – its giant new-generation rocket – for the very next day, heightening the sense of high-stakes rivalry.
“For the last several years SpaceX has been the only game in town, and so to have a competitor… it’s great,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP.
Physically, the New Glenn dwarfs the 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed for heavier payloads.
It lies between the Falcon 9 and its bigger brother, the Falcon Heavy, in terms of mass capacity, but has the edge with its wider payload fairing, which is ideal for transporting much heavier cargo.
If all goes according to plan, immediately after launch, Blue Origin will attempt to land the first stage booster on a drone ship named Jacqueline, in honor of Bezos’ mother, about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) in the Atlantic Ocean. Posted at a distance of.
Although SpaceX has long made such landings an almost routine spectacle, this will be Blue Origin’s first shot at a touchdown on the high seas.
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