First two stages of New Glenn assembled for the first time
After years of delays, Blue Origin announced yesterday that it has finally joined the first and second stages of its orbital New Glenn rocket, in preparation for its planned first launch later this year.
The stages remain horizontal inside Blue Origin’s assembly facility at Cape Canaveral, where engineers continue to check them out.
New Glenn’s launch was originally supposed to be in 2020. Problems with its first stage BE-4 engine put it (as well as ULA’s Vulcan rocket) four years behind schedule. The evidence now suggests that those problems were badly acerbated by the poor leadership of Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s CEO from 2017 to 2023, who apparently refused to spend money on test engines and the additional hardware necessary to test the engine to figure out what was wrong. Smith also appeared to slow all other work down in numerous ways as well as antagonize many at the company, causing a lot of high level engineers over time to flee.
Almost to the day Smith left last year Blue Origin has appeared to come to life. If so, this bodes well for both its future as well as that of the entire American rocket industry. New Glenn is a very powerful rocket, capable of lifting 50 tons to low Earth orbit, making it comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. Its first stage is also designed to be reuseable, landing on a drone ship like the Falcon 9. If successful it will thus be a very capable competitor to SpaceX.
The company is aiming for an August launch. Keep your fingers crossed.
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Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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After years of delays, Blue Origin announced yesterday that it has finally joined the first and second stages of its orbital New Glenn rocket, in preparation for its planned first launch later this year.
The stages remain horizontal inside Blue Origin’s assembly facility at Cape Canaveral, where engineers continue to check them out.
New Glenn’s launch was originally supposed to be in 2020. Problems with its first stage BE-4 engine put it (as well as ULA’s Vulcan rocket) four years behind schedule. The evidence now suggests that those problems were badly acerbated by the poor leadership of Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s CEO from 2017 to 2023, who apparently refused to spend money on test engines and the additional hardware necessary to test the engine to figure out what was wrong. Smith also appeared to slow all other work down in numerous ways as well as antagonize many at the company, causing a lot of high level engineers over time to flee.
Almost to the day Smith left last year Blue Origin has appeared to come to life. If so, this bodes well for both its future as well as that of the entire American rocket industry. New Glenn is a very powerful rocket, capable of lifting 50 tons to low Earth orbit, making it comparable to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. Its first stage is also designed to be reuseable, landing on a drone ship like the Falcon 9. If successful it will thus be a very capable competitor to SpaceX.
The company is aiming for an August launch. Keep your fingers crossed.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Given their experience with New Shepard, I wouldn’t be surprised if they land it on the first try.
The key thing is going to be rapid re-use — getting the first stage back isn’t worth as much if it takes six-eight months to refurbish it for the next flight.
Do they plan to recover the (fairly large and thus expensive) fairings? That one is a major cost saver for SpaceX ($3-6M per flight?).
Another advantage for Space X over Blue Origin is the names they give to their rockets. New Shepard (for example) may honor our first astronaut, but it sounds “clunky“ & “stilted” as a rocket name. New Glenn also sounds “forced” & “contrived”. Even the company name leaves a person scratching their head trying to figure out what they do. “Blue Origin” could be an ocean-based enterprise! The other organization choosing bad names is the ISRO. Perhaps both these folks should contact George Lucas. There‘s a guy who knows how to name spacecraft!
Blue Origin is probably going to be stuck with a quasi-reusable heavy-lift rocket with nothing like the F9 “underneath” it in the market.
Unless they buy ULA of course. Then they’ll have additional market coverage from Vulcan, albeit with only “SMART” reusability if any.
Both powered by BE-4s of course, which so far is very much a pig in a poke in respect to manufacturability and reusability.
Meanwhile, Raptor is evolving to Gen 3, with all the numbers going up… except weight, parts count, and cost to build.
To David.
Dragon should have been the rocket’s name–Falcon, the capsule