The space race can finally begin for the wealthy businessman. Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ American space company Blue Origin launched its large New Glenn rocket for the first time on Thursday, January 16, according to a video broadcast, an inaugural flight that had been awaited for years.
98 meters high, the size of a 30-story building, New Glenn successfully took off around 2:03 a.m. (7:03 a.m. GMT) from the Cape Canaveral space base in Florida. If the mission goes as planned, New Glenn is expected to reach orbit, which would be a first for the private space company founded in 2000. “Anything above that is a bonus,” David Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, has already announced.
The challenge of the flight is clear: to compete with SpaceX, which currently dominates the market, and to a lesser extent the American group ULA and the French Arianespace. “SpaceX has been almost the only player in recent years” in the field of commercial and military launches, notes Scott Hubbard, former executive of the American space agency and professor at Stanford, who welcomes this «concurrence au Falcon 9» of SpaceX, which entered service in the early 2010s. In addition to offering American authorities the security of a backup plan, increased competition could lower launch costs, believes the expert. Both companies were founded in the early 2000s by the two rival Silicon Valley figures, but Blue Origin has grown at a much slower pace, in part due to a more cautious approach to design.
Despite the competition between the two companies, Elon Musk still congratulated Jeff Bezos as soon as the rocket was successfully fired, for having “reaches orbit on the first attempt.”
Like those of its competitor, the New Glenn rocket is partly reusable, and must be able to carry up to 45 tonnes into low orbit. This is more than double that for Falcon 9, but still less than for Falcon Heavy (63.8 tonnes), launched for the first time in 2018. Once the New Glenn rocket was launched, its first stage, which propelled the together, must attempt a controlled landing on a barge at sea, a delicate maneuver similar to those carried out by SpaceX. “No one has yet successfully landed a reusable booster on the first try. However, we are going to try it, and we are humbly confident in our chances of succeeding”David Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, declared on X in September.
A more ambitious project
The Blue Origin company behind the project has already been taking tourists into space for several years, with its New Shepard rocket, but for only a few minutes. With New Glenn, much more powerful, it aims to enter a new market, that of launching heavy commercial and military satellites and sending ships to the Moon or even Mars.
Jeff Bezos’ company has already signed contracts with several clients, including the American space agency for an unmanned mission to Mars, and the American government for national security missions. On the commercial side, it plans to deploy internet satellites for several companies. It should also, like SpaceX with Starlink, be responsible for launching satellites from the Amazon group.
Update : at 9:11 a.m., with the addition of Elon Musl’s statement.
Source: www.liberation.fr
