After a long day of stops and starts that stretched well into the evening, and on what appeared to be the company\u2019s fifth attempt Friday, Blue Origin successfully ignited the seven main engines on its massive New Glenn rocket.<\/p>\n
The test firing came as fog built over the Florida coast, and it marks the final major step in the rocket company\u2019s campaign to bring the New Glenn rocket\u2014a privately developed, super-heavy lift vehicle\u2014to launch readiness. Blue Origin said it fired the vehicle\u2019s engines for a duration of 24 seconds. They fired at full thrust for 13 of those seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a monumental milestone and a glimpse of what\u2019s just around the corner for New Glenn\u2019s first launch,\u201d said Jarrett Jones, senior vice president of the New Glenn program, in a news release. \u201cToday\u2019s success proves that our rigorous approach to testing\u2014combined with our incredible tooling and design engineering\u2013is working as intended.\u201d<\/p>\n
Completion of the dynamic hot-fire test sets up a historic moment for the company founded by Jeff Bezos nearly a quarter of a century ago: the firm\u2019s first ever orbital launch attempt. It will occur from Launch Complex-36, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.<\/p>\n
Blue Origin\u2019s post-test update did not include a launch date, but based on flight advisory information, a no-earlier-than launch date is likely to be January 6.<\/p>\n
Friday was important for New Glenn\u2019s debut mission in another way. Several hours before the test firing, the Federal Aviation Administration said it had issued a launch license for the rocket. The license allows Blue Origin to conduct orbital missions from Cape Canaveral with New Glenn, as well as to attempt first-stage landings on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. The license is valid for five years.<\/p>\n
After years of waiting, Blue Origin\u2019s much-anticipated mission is finally coming together. Today\u2019s hot-fire test, taking place just two days after the Christmas holiday in the United States, reflects the urgency that Bezos has injected into his rocket company over the last 18 months. In the fall of 2023, Bezos ousted Bob Smith as chief executive of Blue Origin and tapped a long-time Amazon executive, Dave Limp, to lead the company.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
During an interview at the time, Bezos acknowledged that Blue Origin was moving more slowly than he had hoped. \u201cBlue Origin needs to be much faster, and it\u2019s one of the reasons that I left my role as the CEO of Amazon a couple of years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to come in, and Blue Origin needs me right now. Adding some energy, some sense of urgency. We need to move much faster. And we\u2019re going to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the last year the company has appeared more nimble as it raced toward the launch pad, completing work on its ground-based infrastructure, assembling the rocket, and preparing a fleet of ships upon which Blue Origin intends to land New Glenn\u2019s first stage for potential reuse.<\/p>\n
At the end of October, the company rolled the rocket\u2019s first stage from its production facility in Florida to the launch pad, and about three weeks later, just before the Thanksgiving holiday, the company moved the integrated first and second stage out to the launch pad for testing.<\/p>\n
Now that the hot-fire test is completed, the company will roll the rocket back into a large integration hangar to install the small \u201cBlue Ring\u201d spacecraft, a test version of an in-space transportation vehicle the company is developing for last-mile and other services for payloads in space.<\/p>\n
Then the completed rocket will be rolled back out to the launch site in Florida for an attempt, possibly as soon as the first week of the new year.<\/p>\n
The launch comes at an important time in the US space industry. The incoming Trump White House is expected to take a hard look at NASA\u2019s current plans for the Artemis Program to return humans to the Moon, and if New Glenn can prove itself to be a reliable heavy lift rocket, it could have an important role to play in getting humans to the lunar surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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