{"id":17226,"date":"2024-02-21T22:57:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T14:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/lets-go-jeff-bezos-gets-revved-up-when-blue-origin-raises-up-its-new-glenn-rocket\/"},"modified":"2024-02-21T22:57:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T14:57:20","slug":"lets-go-jeff-bezos-gets-revved-up-when-blue-origin-raises-up-its-new-glenn-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/lets-go-jeff-bezos-gets-revved-up-when-blue-origin-raises-up-its-new-glenn-rocket\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Let\u2019s go!\u2019 Jeff Bezos gets revved up when Blue Origin raises up its New Glenn rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"496\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/240221-rocket2-630x496.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-812012\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/240221-rocket2-630x496.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/240221-rocket2-1260x992.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/240221-rocket2-768x605.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/240221-rocket2.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp and founder Jeff Bezos get a look at New Glenn. (Blue Origin via LinkedIn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For the first time, Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture lifted up an orbital-class New Glenn rocket on its Florida launch pad \u2014 with the billionaire boss keeping watch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust incredible to see New Glenn on the pad at LC-36,\u201d Bezos wrote today in an Instagram post that referred to Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. \u201cBig year ahead. Let\u2019s go!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin\u2019s CEO, Dave Limp, agreed that the sight was incredible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIts size alone \u2014 more than 30 stories high and a 7-meter diameter fairing with 487 cubic meters of capacity \u2014 is humbling,\u201d  he wrote in a LinkedIn post.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket-raising party marked the climax of New Glenn\u2019s first-ever rollout. \u201cPending weather, the vehicle will remain on the pad for at least a week for a series of tanking tests, including flowing cryogenic fluids for the first time,\u201d Limp said.<\/p>\n<p>But this pathfinder rocket isn\u2019t destined for liftoff. The coming round of tests will be conducted without New Glenn\u2019s BE-4 rocket engines, which are powered by liquefied natural gas and have been going through tests in Huntsville, Ala., and at Blue Origin\u2019s Launch Site One in Texas. Eventually, the rocket will be rolled off the pad \u2014 and then an engine-equipped version, incorporating components from the test vehicle\u2019s first stage, will be prepared for launch.<\/p>\n<p>Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin has been launching its suborbital New Shepard rocket ship from Launch Site One for nine years. That rocket is named after NASA astronaut Alan Shepard, who took a milestone suborbital space mission in 1961.<\/p>\n<p>New Glenn \u2014 whose name pays tribute to John Glenn, the first U.S. astronaut to go into orbit \u2014 is in a different class entirely. The heavy-lift rocket\u2019s reusable first-stage booster is meant to last for at least 25 missions. It\u2019s designed to land itself on a sea-based platform after sending New Glenn\u2019s expendable second stage spaceward. The fairing, or nose cone, is roomy enough to hold three school buses.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-instagram wp-block-embed-instagram\">\n<iframe class=\"instagram-media instagram-media-rendered\" id=\"instagram-embed-0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/C3oj6rax23h\/embed\/captioned\/?cr=1&amp;v=14&amp;wp=987&amp;rd=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geekwire.com&amp;rp=%2F2024%2Fjeff-bezos-blue-origin-new-glenn-rocket%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A2087.7049998380244%7D\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"695\" data-instgrm-payload-id=\"instagram-media-payload-0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"background: white; max-width: 658px; width: calc(100% - 2px); border-radius: 3px; border: 1px solid rgb(219, 219, 219); box-shadow: none; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 12px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0px;\"><\/iframe><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>New Glenn\u2019s development timeline has faced a series of delays over the years. When Blue Origin revealed the rocket\u2019s design in 2016, Bezos said he expected the first flight to take place \u201cbefore the end of this decade\u201d \u2014 that is, before 2020 \u2014 but it\u2019s taken longer than planned to get the BE-4 engines and Blue Origin\u2019s facilities in Florida ready for prime time.<\/p>\n<p>The slower-than-expected pace has drawn unfavorable comparisons to Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, which was founded two years after Blue Origin but has grown to become the world\u2019s dominant space launch company.<\/p>\n<p>Bezos said he chose Limp, who previously served as Amazon\u2019s devices chief, to become Blue Origin\u2019s CEO because of his ability to get results quickly. \u201cDave has an outstanding sense of urgency, brings energy to everything, and helps teams move very fast,\u201d Bezos said in last September\u2019s announcement about Limp\u2019s selection.<\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s LinkedIn post, Limp insisted that this is the year for New Glenn\u2019s debut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cManufacturing continues to make progress with multiple boosters, fairings and second stages in our factory. What a great set of milestones delivered by the team,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to bringing this heavy-lift capacity to our customers later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin says it has a full customer manifest, with launches penciled in for Telesat, Eutelsat and other telecom providers. The two most prominent customers are NASA, which is counting on New Glenn for the launch of its twin ESCAPADE Mars probes this year; and Amazon, the other tech venture founded by Bezos, which has reserved at least 12 New Glenn launches for its Project Kuiper broadband internet satellites.<\/p>\n<p>Also today, Ars Technica reported that Blue Origin has emerged as the sole finalist to purchase United Launch Alliance, a joint space venture currently co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The report attributed that information to two unnamed sources, and quoted those sources as saying they expected the sale to be announced within a month or two.<\/p>\n<p>Speculation about the potential sale of ULA has been circulating for months, with the price rumored to be in the range of $2 billion to $3 billion. ULA\u2019s next-generation Vulcan rocket, which made its debut last month, uses Blue Origin\u2019s BE-4 engines on its first stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp and founder Jeff Bezos get a look at New Glenn. (Blue Origin via LinkedIn) For the first time, Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture lifted up an orbital-class New Glenn rocket on its Florida launch pad \u2014 with the billionaire boss keeping watch. \u201cJust incredible to see New Glenn on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,1046,510],"class_list":["post-17226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-new-glenn"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}