Blue Origin successfully launched its massive New Glenn rocket on Thursday, sending a pair of NASA spacecraft on a long journey to Mars.
This was the second flight of the New Glenn — the rocket Jeff Bezos’ company and NASA hope will play a key role in future lunar missions — and it achieved all major objectives.
The 321-foot (98-meter) rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station after a four-day delay caused by bad weather and strong solar storms that produced rare auroras in southern U.S. states.
In a milestone achievement, Blue Origin safely recovered the booster after separation — a requirement for cutting launch costs and a practice already routine for SpaceX. Employees erupted in cheers as the booster touched down upright on a barge 375 miles (600 km) offshore, while Bezos watched from Launch Control.
“Next stop, moon!” the team chanted after the landing. About 20 minutes later, the rocket’s upper stage released NASA’s twin Mars orbiters, completing the mission. Congratulations also came in from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
New Glenn’s maiden test flight in January reached orbit with a prototype satellite but failed to land the booster.
The two identical spacecraft, named Escapade, will spend about a year in a holding orbit roughly 1 million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. Once Earth and Mars align next fall, they will use Earth’s gravity to sling toward Mars, arriving in 2027.
After entering orbit, the spacecraft will study Mars’ upper atmosphere, its scattered magnetic fields, and how both interact with solar wind. Scientists hope the data will explain how Mars lost most of its atmosphere and shifted from a warm, wet planet to a dry, dusty world. The findings are expected to guide future efforts to protect astronauts from radiation on Mars.
Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley, the mission’s lead scientist, said Escapade will provide a unique “stereo” view of Mars’ space environment using two spacecraft simultaneously.
The mission costs under $80 million and is managed by UC Berkeley. NASA originally planned to launch the orbiters last fall but skipped the ideal window due to uncertainty over New Glenn’s readiness.
Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, New Glenn is five times larger than Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard rockets. The company plans to launch a prototype Blue Moon lunar lander aboard New Glenn in the coming months.
Founded in 2000 by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin holds a NASA contract for the third crewed lunar landing under the Artemis program, while SpaceX was chosen for the first two. However, NASA recently reopened the tender for the first crewed landing due to concerns over Starship’s testing pace.
NASA aims to send astronauts around the moon early next year using its own Space Launch System (SLS). A later Artemis mission will attempt a lunar landing, part of the agency’s goal to return humans to the moon before the decade ends amid growing competition from China.
Twelve astronauts last walked on the moon more than 50 years ago during NASA’s Apollo program.
