Blue Origin’s landing ship arrives in Florida ahead of first New Glenn rocket launch

Blue Origin is preparing to launch its heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn, and land it for the first time from Florida’s Space Coast this fall.

The company, founded by Jeff Bezos, will launch a NASA spacecraft to Mars on the inaugural New Glenn launch. NASA and Blue Origin are scheduled to launch NASA’s ESCAPADE spacecraft on Sunday, Oct. 13, from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Station.

The spacecraft, which stands for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, will study space weather around Mars and how the planet’s atmosphere continues to escape. Rocket Lab built the spacecraft, which arrived in Florida in August and will soon be integrated with the New Glenn rocket for liftoff this fall.

Blue Origin has been developing the New Glenn rocket and its BE-4 engines for years. The rocket is named after the late NASA astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.

Signs that Blue Origin is getting closer to launch are coming quickly at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base and Port Canaveral.

On Tuesday, Blue Origin’s sea lander, “Jacklyn,” sailed into port at Port Canaveral and docked ahead of the first launch and landing attempt.

The craft is autonomous and there will be no one aboard Jacklyn when the New Glenn rocket returns for landing. The company’s feather-shaped logo is in the center of the craft, marking the spot where engineers hope the rocket will soft-land.

Blue Origin’s smallest reusable rocket, New Shepard, has been launching scientific payloads from Texas since 2015 and short-duration human spaceflights to the edge of space since 2021.

Both New Shepard and New Glenn are reusable rockets. New Shepard has made repeated landings in the Texas desert near Van Horn, but New Glenn will make its booster landings in the sea off the coast of Florida.

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said that while New Glenn’s first-stage booster is 188 feet tall compared to New Shepard’s 54-foot booster, the landing zone on the craft is the same 20-foot diameter as the smaller rocket’s landing pad.

“This comes down to physics: it’s easier to balance a broom in the palm of your hand than a pencil because the broom has a higher center of mass,” Limp wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The company plans to attempt the first landing on New Glenn after the first launch. Like everything related to spaceflight development, a first-attempt landing would be impressive, but it’s also possible that it could fail while the company works out issues with this new rocket and landing pad.

“We hope to achieve a successful landing on our first launch from New Glenn, but if we’re not successful, we’ll learn from it and keep trying until we do,” Limp said.

Blue Origin intends to use each New Glenn rocket for at least 25 flights.

Source of the original article: Blue Origin’s landing ship arrives in Florida ahead of first New Glenn rocket launch