Blue Origin launched its massive new rocket on its first test flight Thursday, sending a prototype satellite into orbit thousands of miles above Earth.
The New Glenn rocket, named after the first American to orbit Earth, took off from Florida from the same pad used to launch NASA's Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft half a century ago.
The 320-foot rocket, developed over years and with millions of dollars invested by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, will be used to carry satellites and launch them into proper orbits. It was equipped with a designed experimental platform.
As the rocket hurtled through the pre-dawn sky, all seven main engines ignited for liftoff, eliciting cheers from spectators lining the nearby beach.
Employees erupted in screams and enthusiastic applause when the spacecraft successfully completed orbit 13 minutes later, a feat that was quickly praised by SpaceX's Elon Musk.
Bezos participated in the launch from Mission Control and declined to disclose his personal investment in the program.
He said he doesn't see Blue Origin competing with Elon Musk's SpaceX, long the champion of rocket launches.
He stood in the control room most of the time, looking both anxious and happy.
“Congratulations on reaching orbit on your first attempt!” Musk said via X.
In this test, the satellite was expected to remain within the second stage while orbiting the Earth.
The mission was expected to last six hours, after which the second stage was placed in a safe position and remained in a high, out-of-the-way orbit, in accordance with NASA practices for minimizing space debris.
Although the first stage booster failed to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean minutes after liftoff and had to be recycled, the company stressed that the more important goal was to get the test satellite into orbit. Bezos said before the flight that trying to land the booster on the first try was “a little crazy.”
Blue Origin launch commentator Arian Cornell said: “What a great day.”
New Glenn was scheduled to fly before dawn on Monday, but ice buildup on critical pipes caused delays. Rockets are built to carry spacecraft and, ultimately, astronauts to orbit and the moon.
Blue Origin, founded by Bezos 25 years ago, has been flying passengers, including Bezos, to the edge of space for a fee starting in 2021. The short hop from Texas will use a small rocket named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space. New Glenn, which honors John Glenn, is five times taller.
Blue Origin has poured more than $1 billion into the New Glenn launch site and rebuilt Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's historic Complex 36.
The airfield is nine miles from the company's control center and rocket factory outside the gates of NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Blue Origin plans six to eight New Glenn flights this year if all goes well, with the next scheduled for this spring.
“There's room for a lot of winners” to emerge from the rocket factory over the weekend, Bezos said, adding that this is “the very beginning of this new phase of the space age, and we're all going to work together as an industry…” . This is to reduce the cost of accessing space. ”
New Glenn is the successor to United Launch Alliance's Vulcan, Europe's improved Ariane 6, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), and the Saturn V for sending astronauts to space. It is the latest in a series of large new rockets launched in recent years, including the Space Launch System (SLS). month.
The largest of the rockets, approximately 400 feet tall, is SpaceX's Starship.
Musk said a seventh test flight of the entire rocket could take place late Thursday from Texas. He hopes to repeat his success in October, when he used a giant mechanical arm to catch the booster returning from the launch pad.
Starship is what NASA plans to use to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. The first two moon landings by the space agency's Artemis program, which followed the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, involved a crew descending from lunar orbit to the surface in a spacecraft.
Blue Origin's lander, called Blue Moon, will make its debut on the third moon landing by astronauts.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson pushed for the development of a competing lunar lander, similar to the strategy of hiring two companies to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Nelson will step down when President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.
President Trump has nominated tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Isaacman, who has been launched into orbit twice on privately funded SpaceX flights, must be confirmed by the Senate.
New Glenn's debut was to send twin spacecraft to Mars for NASA. However, it became clear that the rocket would not be ready in time, and the space agency withdrew from the planned flight last October.
They plan to continue flying the New Glenn rocket, but not until spring at the earliest. The two small spacecraft, named Escapade, aim to study Mars' atmosphere and magnetic environment while orbiting the Red Planet.
