The first-stage booster missed its landing on a barge in the Atlantic minutes after liftoff so it could be recycled, but the company stressed that the more important goal was for the test satellite to reach orbit.
“I’m incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt,” said Dave Limp, CEO, Blue Origin. “We knew landing our booster, “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,” on the first try was an ambitious goal. We’ll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring.
“Thank you to all of Team Blue for this incredible milestone.”
New Origin founder Jeff Bezos, who watched from Mission Control, said before the flight it was “a little crazy” to even try to land the booster on the first try.
“Great night for Team Blue. On to spring and trying again on the landing,” Limp said.
The 320-foot tall rocket carried a prototype satellite to orbit thousands of miles above Earth.
Future New Glenn missions will carry the Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander and the Mark 2 crewed lander to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
“Today marks a new era for Blue Origin and for commercial space,” said Jarrett Jones, Senior Vice President, New Glenn. “We’re focused on ramping our launch cadence and manufacturing rates. My heartfelt thanks to everyone at Blue Origin for the tremendous amount of work in making today’s success possible, and to our customers and the space community for their continuous support. We felt that immensely today.”
Customers include NASA, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, and several telecommunications providers, among others. Blue Origin is certifying New Glenn with the U.S. Space Force for the National Security Space Launch program to meet emerging national security objectives.
Don’t miss out! Subscribe to our email newsletter to have all our smart stories delivered to your inbox.
