![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/newglennroll1-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The first full-scale New Glenn rocket rolls out at Launch Complex 36.<\/p>\n
Credit:
\n Blue Origin<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
On Wednesday, ground crews rolled a fully assembled New Glenn rocket out of the hangar at LC-36 and up the ramp to the launch mount. Then, the hydraulic lifting arm raised the two-stage launcher vertically. At more than 320 feet (98 meters) tall, New Glenn is one of the largest rockets ever seen on Florida\u2019s Space Coast, roughly the same height as NASA\u2019s Space Launch System rocket and nearly as tall as the Saturn V used in the Apollo program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe upending is one in a series of major manufacturing and integrated test milestones in preparation for New Glenn\u2019s first launch later this year,\u201d Blue Origin officials wrote in an update on Wednesday. \u201cThe test campaign enables our teams to practice, validate, and increase proficiency in vehicle integration, transport, ground support, and launch operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Glenn can haul nearly 100,000 pounds (45 metric tons) of payload into low-Earth orbit. For low-altitude orbits, this is a weight class above the uppermost capability of United Launch Alliance\u2019s Vulcan rocket or SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket but below SpaceX\u2019s Falcon Heavy. Blue Origin also plans to use the New Glenn rocket to launch lunar landers to the Moon for NASA\u2019s Artemis program.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
New Glenn\u2019s first-stage booster is reusable and is designed to land on an offshore barge in the Atlantic Ocean, which will bring it back to the coast, similar to the way SpaceX recovers its Falcon 9 booster.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fairing is large enough to hold three school buses,\u201d Blue Origin said. \u201cIts reusable first stage aims for a minimum of 25 missions and will land on a sea-based platform located roughly 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blue Origin is now 24 years old and employs around 11,000 people at locations around the country, with major locations in Washington, Texas, Florida, and Alabama. While the company has not yet launched anything into orbit, Blue Origin is working on a wide range of projects aside from rockets, including cargo and human-rated lunar landers for NASA and a space tug that could move payloads into different orbits for the US military. New Glenn is crucial for all of these plans.<\/p>\n
Blue Origin\u2019s latest progress with New Glenn comes as Bezos\u2019s space company appears to be on the verge of buying United Launch Alliance from Boeing and Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n
Trying times<\/h2>\n
Getting New Glenn to the launch pad is a major milestone for Blue Origin. This is undoubtedly a turning point for the privately funded New Glenn program, but there is a lot left to do before the rocket is ready to fly.<\/p>\n
The next step will involve \u201cseveral demonstrations of cryogenic fluid loading, pressure control, and the vehicle\u2019s venting systems,\u201d Blue Origin said. According to a report published by Aviation Week, Blue Origin will load this particular test vehicle with cryogenic liquid nitrogen as a stand-in for the super-cold methane and liquid oxygen propellants used by the first-stage booster on an actual launch. The upper stage won\u2019t be loaded during this upcoming Integrated Tanking Test (ITT).<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
The primary purpose of these initial tests is to validate Blue Origin\u2019s launch pad and ground systems function as designed.<\/p>\n
There are no engines on this New Glenn test vehicle. Blue Origin plans to wrap up testing in the next few months on the seven methane-fueled BE-4 booster engines and two hydrogen-burning BE-3U upper stage engines slated to fly on the first New Glenn rocket.<\/p>\n
If all goes according to plan, Blue Origin should complete the Integrated Tanking Test within a few weeks. The rocket will then roll off the launch pad to allow technicians to install the booster\u2019s engine compartment with the seven BE-4s. New Glenn will also need a new upper stage before returning to LC-36 for a hot-fire test of the seven BE-4 engines, a milestone Aviation Week said is scheduled for this summer.<\/p>\n
Each BE-4 engine can generate 550,000 pounds of thrust at full throttle. Seven of them combined will produce more than 3.8 million pounds of thrust. Blue Origin can already claim the BE-4 engine is flight-proven, following their seemingly flawless performance on the first flight of United Launch Alliance\u2019s Vulcan rocket last month.<\/p>\n
However, there are some design differences between the BE-4s flown on Vulcan and the BE-4s assigned to New Glenn. For one thing, the BE-4s on New Glenn are designed to be reusable from the start, with Blue Origin attempting to recover the booster at sea beginning with the first New Glenn flight. ULA eventually wants to make its Vulcan rocket partially reusable, but for at least the next few years, the BE-4s on Vulcan will be single-use.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
Blue Origin initially plans to operate with a rotation of four reusable New Glenn boosters, each flying as often as every 30 days, according to Aviation Week.<\/p>\n
The company has not announced a firm schedule for the debut of New Glenn other than sometime later this year. The first New Glenn test flight will likely carry a pair of small NASA satellites bound for Mars, an agency official said in November.<\/p>\n
This NASA mission, called ESCAPADE, is on contract with Blue Origin for a launch date in August 2024. However, this schedule is under review. New Glenn\u2019s massive lift capability is overkill for the two ESCAPADE spacecraft, each about the size of a mini-fridge, so engineers are studying the possibility of using New Glenn to send the missions directly to Mars rather than launching them into an initial orbit around Earth.<\/p>\n
Changing the trajectory for ESCAPADE would allow for a launch date later this year. The mission must launch in 2024, with Earth and Mars in the right positions in the Solar System, or else wait until 2026.<\/p>\n
It is worth noting that launchers comparable to New Glenn, such as SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 and Starship, ULA\u2019s Vulcan, and Japan\u2019s H3, took between one and two years to get to a first flight after their first full-scale test vehicles reached the launch pad for fit checks and fueling rehearsals. This final phase of a rocket\u2019s development can often uncover problems that went undetected during manufacturing and component testing.<\/p>\n
However, Jarrett Jones, Blue Origin\u2019s vice president of New Glenn, told Aviation Week he is confident in flying the rocket this year. \u201cWe\u2019re launching this year. It\u2019s happening,\u201d Jones said. \u201cOur plan is to launch twice this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone who has tracked the development of Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn rocket has been waiting for signs of progress from the usually secretive space company. On Wednesday, engineers rolled a full-scale New Glenn rocket, partially made up of flight hardware, to a launch pad in Florida for ground testing. The first New Glenn launch is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45402,"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":[509,1695,291,1046,25,510],"class_list":["post-45429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-cape-canaveral","tag-commercial-space","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-launch","tag-new-glenn"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45429"}],"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=45429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}