Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket set for historic maiden orbital launch: Here are 5 key facts

A quarter-century after its founding, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is preparing for its maiden orbital flight on January 12 with a brand-new rocket, the company hopes will disrupt the commercial space industry. 

“Leave before launch,” Bezos wrote in a post on X. 

Named New Glenn in honour of iconic astronaut John Glenn, the rocket stands 320 feet (98 meters) tall, roughly the height of a 32-story building. It’s set to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, with a window opening at 1:00 am (0600 GMT). 

“Pointy end up!” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp posted on X, sharing images of the massive, gleaming white rocket. 

With the mission, NG-1, Bezos, the world’s second-richest man, is directly targeting the world’s wealthiest: Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. These rockets are crucial for the commercial sector, the Pentagon, and NASA — including transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station. 

Meanwhile, SpaceX is preparing for Starship’s next orbital test launch the following day, adding an extra layer of competition to the high-stakes space race. 

A Tribute 

New Glenn is named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth in 1962. It follows Blue Origin’s first rocket, New Shepard, which was named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space. 

At 320 feet tall, New Glenn is both larger and more powerful than New Shepard, which is used for suborbital space tourism. 

Heavy-Lift Capabilities 

As a "heavy-lift launcher," New Glenn is designed to place substantial payloads into low-Earth orbit, with a capacity of up to 45 tonnes — more than double SpaceX’s Falcon 9, which can carry about 22 tonnes, though it lags behind Falcon Heavy’s 63.8-ton capacity. New Glenn has a notable advantage with its wider payload fairing, allowing it to carry larger objects. 

“It has the largest capacity to carry large objects into space,” said Elliott Bryner, a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. 

Versatility 

New Glenn’s versatility positions it as a potential “Swiss Army knife” of rockets, capable of deploying a wide range of payloads to both low and higher orbits. These could include commercial and military satellites, as well as Project Kuiper, Bezos’s plan to build a space internet constellation to rival SpaceX’s Starlink. New Glenn also has the potential to carry crewed spacecraft. 

With the International Space Station (ISS) expected to be decommissioned in 2030, the race is on to develop replacement platforms, with Blue Origin among the contenders for the first privately operated space station. 

Partial Reusability 

Like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, New Glenn features a reusable first-stage booster, designed to handle up to 25 flights, while the second stage remains expendable. 

However, to reuse the rocket, Blue Origin will need to land it successfully. The company has already perfected the technique with its smaller New Shepard rocket, which lands on solid ground, but reusing New Glenn will require a landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. 

This is a major challenge: SpaceX took six years to perfect its landing technique with Falcon 9 after its first launch in 2010. 

Advanced Technology 

New Glenn’s propulsion system is a leap forward in technology. The first stage uses liquid methane, a cleaner and more efficient fuel than the kerosene used in Falcon 9’s stages. The second stage runs on liquid hydrogen, an even cleaner and more powerful fuel, though more difficult to handle due to its cryogenic properties. 

“It’s the difference between driving a Ferrari and a Volkswagen,” William Anderson, an aeronautics and astronautics professor at Purdue University, told AFP, comparing New Glenn’s technology to that of Falcon 9.