Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket successfully completed its first test mission this Thursday, a vital step for the firm founded by Jeff Bezos in order to set foot in the space industry and become an alternative to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Finally, after four postponements, the powerful 98-meter-high reusable rocket, the same as the Statue of Liberty, took off this morning from a platform at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Center, in Florida (USA), bound for to low Earth orbit, which the second phase reached after 12 minutes.
15 minutes after launch, mission control confirmed that they had lost the first stage of the rocket, which should have landed on a ship in the Atlantic, one of the important achievements of the mission, which would have put them at the technical level of SpaceX.
The New Glenn rocket from Blue Origin
Bezos followed the mission from the control room
Blue Origin assured that its main objective for tonight was to get into orbit above all else and yet the first stage began its controlled descent and was close to landing.
The success of the NG-1 mission, which was followed from mission control by Jeff Bezos, represents the first step for this new range of Blue Origin rockets to obtain the necessary certifications that allow it to undertake National Security missions of the Government of United States, as well as transporting satellites and other heavy loads for private clients.
A payload transport module capable of operating in several orbits
The New Glenn has carried a test version of Blue Ring Pathfinder, the space company’s payload transport module, which has been designed to operate in various orbits.
The rocket, which has reached a maximum altitude of more than 19,000 kilometers, has taken flight after four postponements, the first two due to bad weather conditions in the area where the mission managers have placed the vessel for the recovery of the propellant.
Likewise, early Monday morning, minutes after takeoff, the mission engineers had to suspend the launch due to the formation of ice in one of the systems and ventured to announce another attempt for early Tuesday morning, despite the bad weather conditions that eventually forced that attempt to be cancelled.
A nod to John Glenn, the first American to enter orbit
The New Glenn, named in honor of John Glenn, the first American to reach orbit, is the letter of introduction with which Blue Origin wants to fully set its foot in the space race in which private companies are immersed, and in which SpaceX is the undisputed leader.
So far, Bezos’ firm, founded in 2000, has had modest achievements and has achieved them with its reusable rocket for suborbital flights New Shepard, with which it has taken private clients to the frontiers of space, about 96 kilometers high, and has also done some scientific tests in microgravity.
The details: 7 engines at 28,000 km/h
The powerful New Glenn contains seven robust BE-4 engines, manufactured by Blue Origin and which were already used last year in the Vulcan Centaur of the private consortium United Launch Alliance (ULA). The power of these engines allows the New Glenn to fly at more than 28,000 kilometers per hour, a speed with which it will reach low Earth orbit and even geostationary orbit (more than 36,000 kilometers from Earth).
It also has a seven-meter fairing that gives it more volume for the payload than the smaller class rockets, with a five-meter fairing, and therefore the New Glenn is capable of transporting up to 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit. The rocket has been in development for more than a decade and the success of the NG-1 mission is key to Bezos’ future plans.
The competition with Space X begins
By contrast, in 2024 alone SpaceX has flown its Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 rockets a total of 134 times. Likewise, it has sent about 7,000 of its Starlink, its broadband satellites, against which Blue Origin seeks to compete with its constellation of more than 3,000 Kuiper satellites.
NASA has commissioned both companies to develop crew and cargo landers for future missions of the Artemis program, with which the US space agency seeks to return to the Earth satellite.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.es
