Blue Origin completed a major milestone Thursday with the successful launch of its New Glenn rocket and the company’s first-ever recovery of the rocket’s reusable first-stage booster.
According to BlueOrigin.com, the flight marked New Glenn’s second mission overall and its first carrying customer payloads — NASA’s twin Escapade satellites, which are headed toward Mars.
New Glenn lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:57 p.m. EST after several days of delays.
CNN reported that cloud cover earlier in the week pushed the launch past its original Sunday target, and the company had to coordinate with the Federal Aviation Administration after new daylight launch restrictions took effect during the government shutdown. A strong solar storm on Wednesday caused another postponement as radiation levels temporarily increased risk for spacecraft.
Thursday’s launch proceeded cleanly, and about three minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage separated and began its return to Earth. The booster — nearly 190 feet tall — successfully reignited its engine and steered itself to a controlled landing on Blue Origin’s autonomous barge, Jacklyn, stationed roughly 375 miles off Florida’s coast, according to Blue Origin’s website. The booster now faces a multiday trip back to port and can be reused on future missions.
The achievement puts Blue Origin closer to competing with SpaceX, which has landed and reflown its Falcon 9 boosters hundreds of times. No other company had successfully landed an orbital-class booster until Thursday, The New York Times reported.
The primary mission objective was also completed. As seen in the live webcast, about 33 minutes after launch, the rocket deployed NASA’s Escapade spacecraft — short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration Dynamics Explorers.
According to NASA, the two small satellites, known as Blue and Gold, will travel first to Lagrange Point 2, a gravitational balance point about 930,000 miles from Earth. They will wait there until late 2026, when Earth and Mars align for the next transfer window. Both spacecraft are expected to enter orbit around Mars in September 2027.
CNN reported that Escapade is part of NASA’s SIMPLEx program, which supports low-cost planetary missions. The satellites will study the planet’s upper atmosphere and magnetic environment in hopes of better understanding how Mars lost its thick atmosphere over billions of years.