Within the persevering with saga of billionaires and massive rockets comes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos together with his newest area automobile, New Glenn.
The rocket, which stands taller than the Statue of Liberty, is called after NASA astronaut John Glenn, the primary individual to orbit Earth in 1962. Although a lot shorter than SpaceX‘s towering Starship, it’s concerning the dimension of NASA’s mega moon rocket, the Area Launch System.
Years within the making, the industrial rocket is on the verge of its maiden flight.
On Friday, whereas strapped firmly to its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, New Glenn nailed its last costume rehearsal, firing all seven of its engines for twenty-four seconds. It was the primary time Bezos’ firm, Blue Origin, had operated the complete stacked rocket as an built-in system. Flashes from the engines pierced by way of billows of steam, like cracks of lightning amid storm clouds.
“Next stop launch,” mentioned Bezos in a submit on X, the social media platform owned by his area launch competitor, Elon Musk. Regardless of their rivalry, Musk replied with a want for godspeed.
A video of the take a look at, referred to as a sizzling fireplace, could be watched within the above submit. The demonstration concerned an entire fueling and observe countdown. New Glenn’s booster runs on methane and liquid oxygen, whereas the second stage of the rocket, which propels a spacecraft additional into area, runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
When all seven booster engines are firing in live performance, they produce sufficient horsepower for 2 Nimitz-class plane carriers at full tilt, mentioned David Limp, Blue Origin’s CEO. For 13 seconds of the recent fireplace take a look at, New Glenn was working at 100% of its thrust capability.
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Bezos began Blue Origin in 2000, however its first small rocket, New Shepard, has primarily centered on area tourism, offering brief flights for rich passengers to the cusp of area and again.
Star Trek actor William Shatner, probably the most acquainted area figures in popular culture, turned an actual area traveler in October 2021.
Credit score: PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP through Getty Photographs
However the firm has aspirations to do way more. It is constructing a lunar lander for NASA, to be named Blue Moon, that may carry out a number of uncrewed take a look at flights with the New Glenn rocket, earlier than ferrying Artemis V astronauts from lunar orbit to the floor of the moon.
It is also constructing a industrial area station, dubbed Orbital Reef. NASA awarded Blue Origin a $130 million contract to construct it because the U.S. area company tries to transition to a brand new mannequin of area analysis, whereby companies personal and function area labs in low-Earth orbit and NASA turns into one in all their many purchasers.
Simply previous to Friday’s take a look at, the Federal Aviation Administration issued Blue Origin a launch license for New Glenn, its last administrative approval. Although the corporate hasn’t but introduced when it should try a liftoff, an FAA operational advisory signifies a tentative plan of a launch window opening at 11:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 31, with a backup window on the similar time on New Yr’s Day.
“Well, all we have left to do is mate our encapsulated payload…and then LAUNCH!” Limp mentioned on X. “Congrats to the many Blue folks on today’s test.”
Blue Origin will try to make use of a sea-based touchdown platform, named Jacklyn, to avoid wasting New Glenn boosters.
Credit score: Blue Origin
The license permits Blue Origin to launch New Glenn from the Area Drive station at Cape Canaveral, in addition to land its reusable booster on a barge within the Atlantic Ocean. That sea-based touchdown platform, named Jacklyn, is without doubt one of the largest remotely operated vessels on this planet. The corporate hopes to have the ability to reuse a single booster at the least 25 instances. Reusability is a vital side of the burgeoning industrial area trade, considerably decreasing the price per launch.
Blue Origin needed to get thus far months in the past. The inaugural flight was slated for October, which might have included two Mars orbiters constructed by Rocket Lab for NASA. Had New Glenn launched then, the dual spacecraft would have taken benefit of the planetary alignment that shortens the journey time to the Crimson Planet, a mean of 140 million miles away from Earth.
NASA and Blue Origin are actually in talks for a possible launch for that mission, often known as Escapade, no sooner than spring 2025.
