Blue Origin successfully launched its colossal New Glenn rocket on Thursday, carrying a pair of NASA spacecraft destined for Mars. This marked only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos' company and NASA are depending on to transport people and supplies to the Moon.
The 321-foot (98-meter) New Glenn soared into the afternoon sky from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA's twin Mars orbiters on a lengthy journey to the Red Planet. Liftoff was delayed four days due to poor local weather and solar storms strong enough to produce auroras visible as far south as Florida.
In a remarkable achievement, Blue Origin successfully recovered the booster after its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters. This is an essential step toward recycling the booster and slashing costs, similar to the process used by SpaceX. Company employees cheered wildly as the booster landed upright on a barge situated 375 miles (600 kilometers) offshore. An ecstatic Bezos watched the action from Launch Control.
"Next stop, moon!" company employees chanted following the successful booster landing.
New Glenn's inaugural test flight in January successfully delivered a prototype satellite to orbit but failed to land the booster on its floating platform in the Atlantic.
Escapade orbiters head to Mars
The identical Mars orbiters, collectively named Escapade, will initially spend a year near Earth, positioning themselves 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away. Once Earth and Mars are properly aligned next fall, the duo will use a gravity assist from Earth to propel them toward the Red Planet, arriving in 2027.
Once in orbit around Mars, the spacecraft will map the planet's upper atmosphere and scattered magnetic fields, studying how these regions interact with the solar wind. The observations are expected to shed light on the processes behind the escaping Martian atmosphere, helping to explain how the planet transitioned from wet and warm to dry and dusty. Scientists will also use the data to determine the best ways to protect astronauts against Mars' harsh radiation environment.
“We really, really want to understand the interaction of the solar wind with Mars better than we do now,” said Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley, Escapade's lead scientist, ahead of the launch. “Escapade is going to bring an unprecedented stereo viewpoint because we're going to have two spacecraft at the same time”.
This relatively low-budget mission, costing under $80 million, is managed and operated by UC Berkeley. NASA saved money by securing a spot on one of New Glenn's early flights. The Mars orbiters were originally scheduled to blast off last fall, but NASA bypassed that ideal launch window—Earth and Mars align for a quick transit only every two years—due to potential delays with Blue Origin's brand-new rocket.
Blue Origin's lunar ambitions
Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the world, New Glenn is five times larger than the New Shepard rockets that fly wealthy clients to the edge of space from West Texas. Blue Origin plans to launch a prototype Blue Moon lunar lander on a demo mission aboard New Glenn in the coming months.
Blue Origin, founded in 2000 by Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos, already holds a NASA contract for the third crewed Moon landing under the Artemis program. Elon Musk's SpaceX won the contracts for the first and second crew landings, utilizing its Starship vehicles, which stand nearly 100 feet (30 meters) taller than Bezos' New Glenn.
However, last month, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy reopened the contract for the first crewed Moon landing, citing concerns over the pace of Starship's flight test progress in Texas. Both Blue Origin and SpaceX have since presented accelerated landing plans.
NASA is currently on track to send astronauts around the Moon early next year using its own Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The subsequent Artemis crew would attempt to land; the space agency is urgently pressing to get astronauts back on the lunar surface by the end of the decade in an effort to beat China. Twelve astronauts walked on the Moon more than a half-century ago during NASA's Apollo program.
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