Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is preparing for the inaugural launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday, marking a significant milestone in its journey to compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the commercial space industry.
The towering 30-story rocket has been in development for over a decade and represents a multibillion-dollar investment aimed at capturing market share in satellite launches and challenging the dominance of SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
The maiden flight of New Glenn, scheduled for 1 a.m. ET (0600 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, will carry the company’s first payload, the Blue Ring satellite. This maneuverable spacecraft is designed for satellite servicing and national security missions.
If successful, New Glenn could soon play a pivotal role in launching Amazon’s Kuiper broadband satellite constellation, positioning it as a direct competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink network.
Blue Origin’s past achievements include the suborbital New Shepard rocket, which has been launched and landed successfully multiple times. However, the company has yet to achieve orbit since its founding 25 years ago. New Glenn’s debut could change that, although success on a first attempt is never guaranteed in the space industry.
The rocket boasts significant advancements, including a reusable core stage, which will attempt its first drone ship landing shortly after liftoff, mirroring techniques pioneered by SpaceX.
New Glenn is designed to carry heavier payloads than SpaceX’s Falcon 9, featuring a payload bay twice as wide and roughly double the power. However, it still falls short of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship, which is undergoing testing and aims to expand Starlink’s satellite deployment capabilities. Blue Origin has not disclosed New Glenn’s launch pricing, while Falcon 9 launches start at approximately $62 million.
The development of New Glenn has been a complex process spanning three CEOs and competing priorities within Blue Origin, including the creation of a moon lander for NASA. In late 2023, Bezos replaced the company’s CEO with Dave Limp, a former Amazon executive, to accelerate progress and focus the company on achieving the rocket’s first flight.
Employees have noted a renewed urgency across the organization, with the entire team singularly focused on the mission.
New Glenn enters a competitive market, with major contracts already secured from companies such as Eutelsat’s OneWeb, Canada’s Telesat, and AST SpaceMobile. Its success could also position Blue Origin as a contender in the U.S. Space Force’s multibillion-dollar national security payload procurement competition, which is expected to be decided later this year.
Sunday’s flight will serve as a key certification step for those high-stakes missions, underscoring the significance of this launch for Blue Origin’s future in the space industry.
