On Thursday, Blue Origin successfully landed the first stage of its New Glenn orbital booster, making the company the second to propulsively land the first stage of an orbital rocket after SpaceX. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and the stage touched down on the Jacklyn landing barge in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 375 miles from the launch site. The landing was the second attempt made by Blue Origin, with the first in January failing after a loss of telemetry from the stage.
The rocket also successfully deployed NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) payload toward Mars. ESCAPADE will study the Martian magnetic field and its effect on space around the Red Planet.
Blue Origin’s launch came after two delays, first for cumulus clouds and then for unfavorable solar activity with the potential to affect the ESCAPADE mission. The company also had an abort of the terminal count during Wednesday’s launch proceedings; however, after recycling the clock, New Glenn launched at 3:55 PM EST.
The booster landing on Jacklyn also raised questions for viewers, as the rocket appeared to have missed its target before hovering for an extended period while maneuvering back over the landing barge. Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos clarified the behavior, however, saying, “We nominally target a few hundred feet away from Jacklyn to avoid a severe impact if engines fail to start or start slowly. We’ll incrementally reduce that conservatism over time.”
Next for New Glenn will be a launch of a prototype of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar lander, which is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The launch is planned for January of 2026. New Glenn is also designed to launch the Amazon Leo (recently renamed from Project Kuiper) satellite constellation, a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink. The Federal Communications Commission has approved the deployment of 3,236 satellites into the constellation.