{"id":43730,"date":"2025-10-03T17:20:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/blue-origin-aims-to-land-next-new-glenn-booster-then-reuse-it-for-moon-mission\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T17:20:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:20:38","slug":"blue-origin-aims-to-land-next-new-glenn-booster-then-reuse-it-for-moon-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/blue-origin-aims-to-land-next-new-glenn-booster-then-reuse-it-for-moon-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Origin aims to land next New Glenn booster, then reuse it for Moon mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a good bit riding on the second launch of Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn rocket.<\/p>\n

Most directly, the fate of a NASA science mission to study Mars\u2019 upper atmosphere hinges on a successful launch. The second flight of Blue Origin\u2019s heavy-lifter will send two NASA-funded satellites toward the red planet to study the processes that drove Mars\u2019 evolution from a warmer, wetter world to the cold, dry planet of today.<\/p>\n

A successful launch would also nudge Blue Origin closer to winning certification from the Space Force to begin launching national security satellites.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more on the line. If Blue Origin plans to launch its first robotic Moon lander early next year\u2014as currently envisioned\u2014the company needs to recover the New Glenn rocket\u2019s first stage booster. Crews will again dispatch Blue Origin\u2019s landing platform into the Atlantic Ocean, just as they did for the first New Glenn flight in January.<\/p>\n

The debut launch of New Glenn successfully reached orbit, a difficult feat for the inaugural flight of any rocket. But the booster fell into the Atlantic Ocean after three of the rocket\u2019s engines failed to reignite to slow down for landing. Engineers identified seven changes to resolve the problem, focusing on what Blue Origin calls \u201cpropellant management and engine bleed control improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Relying on reuse<\/h2>\n

Pat Remias, Blue Origin\u2019s vice president of space systems development, said Thursday that the company is confident in nailing the landing on the second flight of New Glenn. That launch, with NASA\u2019s next set of Mars probes, is likely to occur no earlier than November from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fully intend to recover the New Glenn first stage on this next launch,\u201d Remias said in a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney. \u201cFully intend to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, nicknamed the booster stage for the next flight \u201cNever Tell Me The Odds.\u201d It\u2019s not quite fair to say the company\u2019s leadership has gone all-in with their bet that the next launch will result in a successful booster landing. But the difference between a smooth touchdown and another crash landing will have a significant effect on Bezos\u2019 Moon program.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the third New Glenn launch, penciled in for no earlier than January of next year, will reuse the same booster flown on the upcoming second flight. The payload on that launch will be Blue Origin\u2019s first Blue Moon lander, aiming to become the largest spacecraft to reach the lunar surface. Ars has published a lengthy feature on the Blue Moon lander\u2019s role in NASA\u2019s effort to return astronauts to the Moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will use that first stage on the next New Glenn launch,\u201d Remias said. \u201cThat is the intent. We\u2019re pretty confident this time. We knew it was going to be a long shot [to land the booster] on the first launch.\u201d<\/p>\n

A long shot, indeed. It took SpaceX 20 launches of its Falcon 9 rocket over five years before pulling off the first landing of a booster. It was another 15 months before SpaceX launched a previously flown Falcon 9 booster for the first time.<\/p>\n

With New Glenn, Blue\u2019s engineers hope to drastically shorten the learning curve. Going into the second launch, the company\u2019s managers anticipate refurbishing the first recovered New Glenn booster to launch again within 90 days. That would be a remarkable accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Dave Limp, Blue Origin\u2019s CEO, wrote earlier this year on social media that recovering the booster on the second New Glenn flight will \u201ctake a little bit of luck and a lot of excellent execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On September 26, Blue Origin shared this photo of the second New Glenn booster on social media.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s production of second stages for the New Glenn rocket has far outpaced manufacturing of booster stages. The second stage for the second flight was test-fired in April, and Blue completed a similar static-fire test for the third second stage in August. Meanwhile, according to a social media post written by Limp last week, the body of the second New Glenn booster is assembled, and installation of its seven BE-4 engines is \u201cwell underway\u201d at the company\u2019s rocket factory in Florida.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

The lagging production of New Glenn boosters, known as GS1s (Glenn Stage 1s), is partly by design. Blue Origin\u2019s strategy with New Glenn has been to build a small number of GS1s, each of which is more expensive and labor-intensive than SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9. This approach counts on routine recoveries and rapid refurbishment of boosters between missions.<\/p>\n

However, this strategy comes with risks, as it puts the booster landings in the critical path for ramping up New Glenn\u2019s launch rate. At one time, Blue aimed to launch eight New Glenn flights this year; it will probably end the year with two.<\/p>\n

Laura Maginnis, Blue Origin\u2019s vice president of New Glenn mission management, said last month that the company was building a fleet of \u201cseveral boosters\u201d and had eight upper stages in storage. That would bode well for a quick ramp-up in launch cadence next year.<\/p>\n

However, Blue\u2019s engineers haven\u2019t had a chance to inspect or test a recovered New Glenn booster. Even if the next launch concludes with a successful landing, the rocket could come back to Earth with some surprises. SpaceX\u2019s initial development of Falcon 9 and Starship was richer in hardware, with many boosters in production to decouple successful landings from forward progress.<\/p>\n

Blue Moon<\/h2>\n

All of this means a lot is riding on an on-target landing of the New Glenn booster on the next flight. Separate from Blue Origin\u2019s ambitions to fly many more New Glenn rockets next year, a good recovery would also mean an earlier demonstration of the company\u2019s first lunar lander.<\/p>\n

The lander set to launch on the third New Glenn mission is known as Blue Moon Mark 1, an unpiloted vehicle designed to robotically deliver up to 3 metric tons (about 6,600 pounds) of cargo to the lunar surface. The spacecraft will have a height of about 26 feet (8 meters), taller than the lunar lander used for NASA\u2019s Apollo astronaut missions.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

The first Blue Moon Mark 1 is funded from Blue Origin\u2019s coffers. It is now fully assembled and will soon ship to NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston for vacuum chamber testing. Then, it will travel to Florida\u2019s Space Coast for final launch preparations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are building a series, not a singular lander, but multiple types and sizes and scales of landers to go to the Moon,\u201d Remias said.<\/p>\n

The second Mark 1 lander will carry NASA\u2019s VIPER rover to prospect for water ice at the Moon\u2019s south pole in late 2027. Around the same time, Blue will use a Mark 1 lander to deploy two small satellites to orbit the Moon, flying as low as a few miles above the surface to scout for resources like water, precious metals, rare Earth elements, and helium-3 that could be extracted and exploited by future explorers.<\/p>\n

A larger lander, Blue Moon Mark 2, is in an earlier stage of development. It will be human-rated to land astronauts on the Moon for NASA\u2019s Artemis program.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon MK1 lander, seen in the center, is taller than NASA\u2019s Apollo lunar lander, currently the largest spacecraft to have landed on the Moon. Blue Moon MK2 is even larger, but all three landers are dwarfed in size by SpaceX\u2019s Starship.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Blue Origin<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

NASA\u2019s other crew-rated lander will be derived from SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket. But Starship and Blue Moon Mark 2 are years away from being ready to accommodate a human crew, and both require orbital cryogenic refueling\u2014something never before attempted in space\u2014to transit out to the Moon.<\/p>\n

This has led to a bit of a dilemma at NASA. China is also working on a lunar program, eyeing a crew landing on the Moon by 2030. Many experts say that, as of today, China is on pace to land astronauts on the Moon before the United States.<\/p>\n

Of course, 12 US astronauts walked on the Moon in the Apollo program. But no one has gone back since 1972, and NASA and China are each planning to return to the Moon to stay.<\/p>\n

One way to speed up a US landing on the Moon might be to use a modified version of Blue Origin\u2019s Mark 1 lander, Ars reported Thursday.<\/p>\n

If this is the path NASA takes, the stakes for the next New Glenn launch and landing will soar even higher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a good bit riding on the second launch of Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn rocket. Most directly, the fate of a NASA science mission to study Mars\u2019 upper atmosphere hinges on a successful launch. The second flight of Blue Origin\u2019s heavy-lifter will send two NASA-funded satellites toward the red planet to study the processes that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43734,"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":[],"class_list":["post-43730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43730"}],"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=43730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}