The new giant already has a long line of clients
The American aerospace company Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, unveiled its new rocket, New Glenn, at the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. The rocket is being prepared for tests, which will take place in the near future.
The company has entered into an agreement with NASA to become the second supplier of the lunar module for the Artemis project, which allows it to become one of the key players in the space industry.
The New Glenn rocket is about 98 meters tall, making it only 12 meters smaller than the Saturn V rocket used on the Apollo missions. It can accommodate a payload in a 7-meter bay, twice the capacity of many modern commercial rockets.
New Glenn's feature is the ability to reuse the first stage, like SpaceX's Falcon rockets — it is designed for at least 25 launches. This allows significant savings in startup costs. After completing its function, the first stage will land on an offshore platform located at a distance of about 1000 kilometers from the launch site.
The process of creating New Glenn began at the end of 2023, when the first stage module was delivered to the integration complex 15 kilometers from the launch site. Now the rocket is vertically installed and will undergo a series of tests, including filling seven BE-4 engines with cryogenic fuel. These are the most powerful liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas engines since the Saturn V F1 engines.
Blue Origin is confident of the successful completion of the tests and is already producing several New Glenn rockets. The company has a long list of customers wanting to use this rocket. Blue Origin's clients include NASA, Project Kuiper, Telesat, Eutelsat and the US Space Force's national security space launch program.