Jeff Bezos’ space venture, Blue Origin, has triumphed with the successful launch of its colossal New Glenn rocket earlier today. Initially scheduled for lift-off in Florida on Monday, the event was postponed due to a technical snag.
The 98-metre behemoth, designed with reusability in mind, features a booster intended to touch down on an Atlantic platform for repeated use in subsequent missions. Blasting off just after 7am (GMT), New Glenn soared into the cosmos at an astonishing velocity of five miles per second, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Onboard was a prototype satellite, signifying a monumental leap for Bezos’ firm, which has invested years in achieving orbital launch capabilities. The rocket, named in honour of John Glenn—the first American to orbit our planet—is five times taller than Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard, which has been ferrying fee-paying adventurers to space’s threshold from Texas.
Updates flooding in from Blue Origin’s ‘X’ account confirmed that New Glenn had breached the Kármán line, the universally acknowledged frontier of space, and successfully placed its cargo into orbit.
The landing platform Jacklyn, named in honour of Bezos’ mother, was the intended target for the booster—the reusable segment of the rocket—to make a successful return hundreds of miles from the launch site.
However, this aspect of the mission did not according to plan. Although it wasn’t an essential part of the mission, New Glenn still failed to land its booster onto the landing platform.
A Blue Origin spokesperson explained the situation on X: “We lost the booster during descent. We knew landing the first stage on the first try was ambitious. We’ll learn, refine, and apply that to our next launch in the spring.”
The rep insisted they’re still “thrilled with today’s outcome”. New Glenn safely reached its intended orbit during today’s NG-1 mission, accomplishing their primary objective.
“The second stage is in its final orbit following two successful burns of the BE-3U engines,” the spokesperson added. “The Blue Ring Pathfinder is receiving data and performing well.”
Despite the setback, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX is a direct competitor to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, extended his congratulations on X, his social media platform: “Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt! @JeffBezos”.
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