A Look at New Glenn: Blue Origin’s Heavy-Lift Booster Rocket

Although beset by delays, the project is moving steadily toward launch.

Doug Adler

Monday, September 30, 2024 at 02:39 PM ET

Verified

Edited By: tccjeremy

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket sits upright for the first time during testing in February 2024. [Courtesy: Blue Origin]

Key Takeaways:

Blue Origin's New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital rocket designed to compete with SpaceX, featuring a reusable first stage and unique aerodynamic control surfaces like fins and strakes.
The two-stage booster plans to land its reusable first stage vertically on a large, sea-based platform called Jacklyn, drawing on Blue Origin's suborbital New Shepard rocket's successful reuse experience.
New Glenn has faced significant launch delays, resulting in NASA pulling its planned ESCAPADE mission; Blue Origin now intends to use its internal Blue Ring project for the inaugural flight.

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In the world of private space companies, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is king. To date, SpaceX has launched close to 400 of their Falcon 9 orbital rockets as well as 10 Falcon Heavy rockets, and their Starship program is making rapid progress.

Still, SpaceX is not without competition. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ own private space company, Blue Origin, has been slowly racking up successes. Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rocket (named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space) has launched 26 times (with 25 successes), including eight crewed missions. Blue Origin has also been making steady progress on its own next-generation orbital booster, which the company has named New Glenn (after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth).