Cape Canaveral: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is set to launch its first orbital rocket next week, seeking to mark a watershed moment in the commercial space race currently dominated by Elon Musk-owned SpaceX.
The rocket, named New Glenn, is scheduled to lift off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 1 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Wednesday, with a backup window on Friday, according to an advisory from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Although Blue Origin hasn’t officially confirmed the launch date, excitement has been building since the successful “Hotfire” test on December 27.
“Next stop launch,” Bezos announced on X, sharing a video of the massive rocket’s engines roaring to life.
The NG-1 mission will carry a prototype Blue Ring, a Defense Department-funded spacecraft envisioned as a versatile satellite deployment platform, during a six-hour test flight. will remain in the second stage of the rocket.
It will mark Blue Origin’s long-awaited entry into the lucrative orbital launch market after years of suborbital flights with its tiny New Shepard rocket, which carries passengers and payloads on short trips to the edge of space. goes
“The market is really orbital,” said analyst Laura Forczek, founder of Astralytical AFP.
“Suborbital can only take you so far — there are only so many payloads and customers for a quick ride to space,” he added.
Space Baron
The milestone will also heighten the rivalry between Bezos, the world’s second-richest man, and Musk, the richest man, who has consolidated his dominance of SpaceX and is now in President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets have become industrial workhorses, serving clients from commercial satellite operators to the Pentagon and NASA, which rely on them to transport astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS). .
Like the Falcon 9, New Glenn features a reusable first stage designed to land vertically on a ship at sea.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Lump said on X that the ship, named “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,” reflects the challenge of landing a reusable rocket on the first try.
At 320 feet (98 m), the New Glenn dwarfs the 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed to carry larger, heavier payloads.
It slots between the Falcon 9 and its bigger brother, the Falcon Heavy, in cargo capacity while burning cleaner liquefied natural gas instead of kerosene and relying on fewer engines.
“If I were still a senior executive at NASA, I would be very happy to have some competition with the Falcon 9,” NASA’s former “Mars Czar” told Stanford University G. Scott Hubbard. AFPHe added that increased competition could help drive down launch costs.