Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launches massive New Glenn rocket on first test flight and reaches orbit

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CAPE CANAVERAL, FL (AP) — Blue original NASA launched its massive new rocket on its first test flight on Thursday, sending a prototype satellite into orbit thousands of miles above Earth.

It was named after The first American to orbit the EarthA New Glenn rocket lifted off from Florida, rising from the same pad used to launch NASA’s Mariner and Pioneer spacecraft a half-century ago.

Years in the making and highly funded by Amazon founder Jeff BezosThe 320-foot (98 m) rocket carried an experimental platform designed to host satellites or launch them into their appropriate orbits.

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All seven main engines fired on liftoff as the rocket rocketed into the dawn sky, much to the delight of spectators lining the nearby beaches. The company’s employees broke into frenzied cheers and applause once the vehicle successfully reached orbit 13 minutes later, a feat that did not receive quick praise from SpaceX’s Elon Musk.

Bezos participated in the operation from mission control, standing with his arms crossed as he stared out a set of windows and watched New Glenn take flight.

“We did it! Orbital,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said via X.

For this test, the satellite was supposed to remain inside the second stage as it orbited Earth. The mission was expected to last six hours, and then the second stage would be placed in a safe state to remain in an out-of-the-way high orbit in accordance with NASA practices to reduce space waste.

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The first-stage rocket failed to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean minutes after liftoff so it could be recycled, but the company stressed that the most important goal was to get the experimental satellite into orbit. Bezos said before the flight that it was “a little crazy” just trying to land the boosted plane on the first try.

“Great night for the Blue team. “We go into the spring and try to land again,” Lemp said.

New Glenn was supposed to fly before dawn Monday, but ice buildup in critical pipes caused the flight to be delayed. The rocket was built to transport spacecraft and eventually Astronauts into orbit And also the moon.

Blue Origin was founded 25 years ago by Bezos Passenger payment launch To the edge of space since 2021, including himself. Short hops from Texas use smaller rockets named after the first American in space, Alan Shepard. New Glenn, which honors John Glenn, is five times longer.

Blue Origin has pumped more than $1 billion into the New Glenn launch site, rebuilding Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s historic Complex 36. The platform is located 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the company’s control centers and rocket factory, outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Blue Origin expects six to eight New Glenn flights this year, if all goes well, with the next flight launching this spring.

In an interview over the weekend, Bezos declined to reveal his personal investment in the program. He said he doesn’t see Blue Origin as competing with Musk’s SpaceX, which has long been dominant in the rocket launch business.

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“There’s room for a lot of winners,” the rocket manufacturer’s Bezos said Sunday evening, adding that this was “the very beginning of this new phase of the Space Age, where we’re all going to work together as an industry….” …to reduce the cost of access to space.”

New Glenn is the latest in a series of large, new rockets launched in recent years, including United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, Europe’s updated Ariane 6 and NASA’s Space Launch System, or SLS, the space agency’s successor to Saturn V for sending astronauts. To space. moon.

The largest rocket ever, about 400 feet (123 meters) tall, is SpaceX’s Starship. Musk said the seventh test flight of the complete rocket could take place later Thursday from Texas. He hopes to repeat what he achieved in October, when he was able to catch the returning engine at the launch pad with giant mechanical arms.

The spacecraft is what NASA plans to use to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. The first two lunar landings under the space agency’s Artemis program, which follows the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, will see crews descend from lunar orbit to the surface in spacecraft.

Blue Origin’s lander, called Blue Moon, will make its debut on astronauts’ third lunar landing.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has pushed to launch competing landers on the moon similar to the strategy of hiring two companies to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Nelson is scheduled to step down when President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.

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Trump appointed tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Isaacman, who has twice been launched into orbit on privately funded SpaceX flights, must receive Senate approval.

New Glenn was supposed to send a double spacecraft to Mars for the first time for NASA. But the space agency pulled them from the scheduled flight last October when it became clear the rocket wouldn’t be ready in time. They will continue to fly on a New Glenn rocket, but not until spring at the earliest. The two small spacecraft, named Escapade, aim to study Mars’ atmosphere and magnetic environment while orbiting the red planet.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Education Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP is solely responsible for all content.

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