Company Succeeded with the Recovery of the First Stage on Just Second Attempt
The National Space Society (NSS) congratulates Blue Origin and its founder, Jeff Bezos, on the success of its second New Glenn mission. On November 13, at 3:55 p.m. Eastern Time, the company launched its second New Glenn rocket carrying a NASA payload that will eventually orbit Mars. The booster stage then descended to a landing on a recovery barge offshore from the Kennedy Space Center about 7 minutes after launch. Blue Origin is only the second company in history to accomplish this feat after SpaceX, and is the first entity to do so on just its second landing attempt.
New Glenn sent two probes, called the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) and built for NASA by Rocket Lab, toward a Lagrange point about a million miles away and opposite the sun where they will loiter until Mars is in an optimal position to be reached. The twin spacecraft will then fire up their rocket engines to head into a Mars transfer orbit. Upon reaching the Red Planet, the UC Berkeley-operated orbiters will study the Martian magnetosphere and atmospheric loss due to solar wind.
Dale Skran, NSS COO and Senior Vice President, said, “The National Space Society congratulates Blue Origin on their amazing success in landing the first stage of the New Glenn on its second test flight. NSS members look forward to a new age of competitive reusable launch vehicles lowering the cost of access to space.”
In addition to deploying the NASA spacecraft, the rocket carried the first flight test of Viasat’s telemetry data relay service for NASA’s Communications Services Project. “We achieved full mission success today, and I am so proud of the team,” said Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, adding, “… never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try.”
Blue Origin is now in a position to compete directly with SpaceX, which has long dominated the U.S. launch market. The entry of a new, reusable booster into the marketplace provides for a robust, competitive launch ability that will drive down costs and provide launch assurance with a second reusable system.
