The New Glenn rocket from the American space company Blue Origin completed its first flight into orbit this Thursday, January 16, 2025. This flight, which has been postponed several times, had been expected for years.
“We did it!” said boss David Limp in a statement to X. The flight of the New Glenn rocket had been expected for years and had been postponed several times. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin carried out its first flight into orbit in more than 20 years of existence this Thursday, January 16. New Glenn successfully launched from the Cape Canaveral space station in Florida, USA.
The mission achieved its “main objective,” which was to launch the rocket’s second stage into orbit. The second stage has reached “its final orbit” and the Blue Ring multi-purpose tug prototype carried by New Glenn “is receiving data and operating well,” Blue Origin said in a statement. Blue Ring is a spacecraft designed to conduct operations in space and place satellites into their final orbits.
In addition to entering orbit, on this first flight Blue Origin wanted to attempt to recover the first stage of its rocket, the booster, by landing it in a controlled manner on a barge at sea, but the teams lost the booster.
New flights in 2025
Following this success, further New Glenn flights are scheduled to follow in 2025. Blue Origin has already signed contracts with several customers, including the American space agency for an unmanned mission to Mars and the American government for national security missions. In the commercial sector, the use of Internet satellites is planned for several companies. She is also said to be responsible for launching satellites from the Amazon Group.
Competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX
While Blue Origin has been taking tourists into space for a few minutes with its New Shepard rocket for several years, it has not yet performed an orbital flight. Jeff Bezos wants to use his new New Glenn rocket to enter the new market for launching commercial and military satellites as well as spacecraft and astronauts into orbit, thereby competing with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company.
Elon Musk, who currently dominates the market with his Falcon9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, was quick to welcome his rival Jeff Bezos. “Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first try!” Elon Musk posted on his X platform to Jeff Bezos. “Thank you,” he replied.
The two Silicon Valley figures each founded their space companies in the early 2000s, but Blue Origin has made much slower progress than SpaceX, in part because of a more cautious design approach.