New Glenn is ready to fly again
Made by Rex and Magnum
Big missions require big solutions.
One singular mission to Mars launched by one of the newest heavy rockets, with his own ambitions, is set to launch on November 9 at the moment of writing this article, but what is this mission about, what are the ambitions of this big lifter, and why is it important to NASA and Blue Origin?
With its impressive 98 meters of height and 2 stages, the first stage having the secondary mission of trying its first successful landing at sea, New Glenn has the key primary mission to launch and deploy the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers mission, also known as ESCAPADE, performed by 2 spacecraft called Blue and Gold.
Welcome to our article talking about this important mission to the red dot.
New Glenn: one of the rockets of the future
New Glenn graphic. Credit: Blue Origin
New Glenn is a heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin, a company founded by Jeff Bezos 25 years ago and dedicated to the commercialization and advancement of space exploration. It’s one of the biggest rockets ever developed, standing 98 m tall (as tall as SLS) and 7 m wide, with a mass at liftoff of over 1000 tons, placing itself as a new contender in heavy-lift reusability. It is composed of 2 stages:
The first stage is 57.4 m tall, powered by 7 BE-4 engines with a thrust of 2450 kN each (17.150 kN total) and a specific impulse (or isp) of 340 s in the vacuum. These BE-4 engines burn methalox, with CH4 as fuel and LOX as oxidizer, and they can provide more than 3 minutes of burn time on ascent, with 3 of these engines also relighting for the entry and landing burns.
The first stage is equipped with several landing systems: four landing legs stowed in an internal compartment at the base deploy in just eight seconds during the final landing phase; strakes on the lower body of the rocket help with aerodynamic guidance and lift, as well as 4 top fins that work in tandem with the RCS thrusters to precisely guide the booster down to its splashdown zone.
The second stage is 26.3 m tall and is powered by 2 BE-3U engines with a thrust of 778 kN each (1556 kN total) and a specific impulse of 445 s… this unusually high specific impulse is given by the propellants used, which are liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, or hydrolox, giving great efficiency for upper stages. This configuration also makes New Glenn’s second stage (or GS2) able to burn for up to 644 seconds (10 minutes and 44 seconds), with reignition capabilities, which were first tested on the maiden flight when the stage reignited after a coast phase to place the Blue Ring pathfinder payload into the correct orbit.
The rest of the height is taken by the payload fairings, which are among the biggest in the world, with 7 m of width, more than 14 m of height, and an internal volume of 458 m3.
Thanks to all these features, New Glenn is allegedly able to launch up to 45.000 kg to LEO, 13.000 kg to GTO, and 7.000 kg to the Moon; with its busy launch manifest, reusability potential, and promises of a fast cadence, it directly places itself as a competitor to rockets like Falcon Heavy or Ariane 6.
The engines powering the giant
Methalox power
BE-4. Credit: Blue Origin
The BE-4 powers the first stage, providing the high thrust required to overcome gravity and propel the second stage out of the atmosphere.
Working under the Stage Combustion Cycle which operates by flowing the propellant through multiple combustion chambers and uses a single oxygen-rich preburner and a single turbine that drives both the fuel and the oxidizer pumps, we will discuss this cycle in our series of articles about engine cycles.
The BE-4 produces a combustion chamber pressure of 14 MPa, or 2,000 psi, substantially lower than the 26 MPa, or 3,700 psi, of the RD-180 and the 35 MPa, or 5,100 psi, of Raptor 3, with a deep throttling capability of 40% of power.
This ends with around 2,400 kN or 244 tf at full power. Since BE-4 only performs at sea level and not in Vacuum, we will keep these numbers.
The BE-4 is designed for long life and high reliability and matches the first-stage duty, but what about the second stage?
The dual team
BE-3U. Credit: Blue Origin
The BE-3U is a vacuum-optimized variant of its smaller brother, the BE-3, and is the newest member of the family, which works under the Open Expander Cycle, operates using a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen or hydrolox combination, and is capable of generating up to 778 kN or 79 tf of thrust in vacuum, with throttle-down capability down to 623 kN or around 63 tf.
Two BE-3U engines power the New Glenn upper stage, and with restart capability, this enables a wide range of customer missions, including direct injection to geostationary orbit.
As Blue Origin states, the BE-3U leverages heritage BE-3 hardware while improving efficiency and thrust-to-weight to support the upper-stage mission. The engine provides a balance of performance and cost in a robust, reliable package.
These two engines will provide the thrust and precision required by ESCAPADE and the Viasat demo cargo.
Payloads: ESCAPADE and Viasat demo
The two ESCAPADE spacecraft. Credit: Rocket Lab
On the maiden flight of New Glenn back in January 2025, the payload carried was a Blue Ring pathfinder set to go in low earth orbit… while important for the company, it was nothing compared to the one carried in this launch. I present to you the primary payload, ESCAPADE (ESCape And Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorer):
ESCAPADE is a mission composed of 2 twin spacecraft, each with a dry mass of 200 kg and a wet mass of 535-550 kg, aimed at studying Mars’ magnetosphere, including its interactions with the solar wind, how it drives ions around (possibly even disrupting communications), and what were the causes of its reduction over billions of years.
As part of NASA’s SIMPLEx program, this mission will demonstrate the ability to manufacture low-cost, high-reward interplanetary missions, with the cost for both spacecraft being below $80 million, including launch costs, whereas past Mars missions have been in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes even surpassing a billion.
The two spacecraft are named Blue and Gold, and they have a small dimension of just 60 x 70 x 90 cm when stowed; however, they will be much bigger when the 2 solar arrays deploy from both sides of each spacecraft, providing 260W of power overall.
Rocket Lab was responsible for manufacturing the spacecraft, which is based on their Photon satellite bus; this includes hardware such as the structure itself, solar arrays, reaction wheels, inertial measurement unit (IMUs), star trackers, cold gas thrusters, and communication hardware (in X-band via a 60-cm diameter dish antenna). The main propulsion system is chemical and provided by Arianespace.
But what will these spacecraft do once they arrive at Mars? Their main scientific objectives are to understand the processes that control the structure of Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere and how it guides the flow of ions, how the solar wind transports energy and momentum through the magnetosphere, and the processes that control the flow of energy and matter in and out of the atmosphere. All these scientific objectives are aimed at a deeper understanding of the Martian environment, gathering more data ahead of future missions.
To this purpose, there are 3 scientific instruments aboard each spacecraft: EMAG, a magnetometer developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to measure DC magnetic fields; EESA, an electrostatic analyzer to measure the energies, fluxes, and masses of ions developed by the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory; and ELP, developed by Embry Riddle University to measure thermal electron density.
Now, onto the mission profile of the spacecraft: they won’t be launched directly to Mars, but rather to the L2 Lagrange Point, which is a gravitationally stable point 1.5 million km from Earth; they will stay there for about 12 months, following Earth along its orbit, until the opening of the Mars window in late 2026. At that point, the 2 spacecraft will conduct a TMI (Trans-Mars Injection) burn, followed by smaller adjustment burns during the 11-months cruise time; the main science mission will then last 11 months, with the possibility of extension.
The success of ESCAPADE would mark the first time a SIMPLEx mission succeeds, the first commercial interplanetary mission, and the first multi-spacecraft mission to Mars… it would also open a new horizon of low-cost, high-reward, fast interplanetary missions; in fact, lots of data could be gathered by ESCAPADE while being developed in under 4 years and at a cost of $80 million. Launching it to L2 also allows for launch flexibility, meaning spacecraft following this approach wouldn’t have to wait on Earth for the opening of the window, or worry about missing it by much.
Onboard NG-2 (New Glenn 2), there will also be a secondary payload: a Viasat technological demonstration. Viasat, which is a communication satellite company, has installed an L-band transmitter and an array of antennas on New Glenn, which will demonstrate their InRange telemetry and tracking service using one of their satellites. This will be useful to gather live telemetry of the rocket, regardless of the presence of ground stations in the rocket’s trajectory, and comes as a solution to NASA’s announcement that, as of late 2024, no new missions would use the TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) system, but instead switch to commercial providers.
The journey to the red planet
ESCAPADE spacecraft arriving at Mars.
It all starts with a liftoff from the complex LC-36, Florida, at around 14:45 pm EST or 19:45 UTC, powered by 7 BE-4 at full thrust. New Glenn will ascend, reaching Max-Q, which is the point of maximum aerodynamic load experienced in the vehicle, after which the first stage will separate, paving the way for the second stage to ignite its 2 BE-3U engines. After that, the first stage will perform a reorient maneuver to orient its 7 engines before executing a reentry burn to decelerate, then it will perform a landing burn to precisely land on the landing platform vessel 1, more commonly known as Jacklin.
Hopefully we will witness the first landing of New Glenn! Good luck to Blue Origin; I can’t wait to welcome you in the orbital reusable club.
Continuing with the second stage and the fairing jettison, the second stage will continue its powered journey towards orbit after the nominal shutdown. ESCAPADE will separate from the second stage, and the second stage will be safed and inerted to help with the Orbital Mitigation Practices of NASA.
ESCAPADE will start its journey into a staging orbit near the L2 Lagrange point between the Earth and the Sun in late 2025. It will wait there, studying space weather, until late 2026, when the Mars window opens again. Then, ESCAPADE will change course to dive near the Earth to execute its escape burns.
ESCAPADE will execute one major and several minor propulsive maneuvers during its 11-month cruise to Mars. After reaching Mars, the twin probes will enter a highly elliptical orbit. Over the following six months, the orbit will be lowered and circularized until it reaches the nominal science orbit.
Landing: a key goal for New Glenn
Animation of New Glenn during its landing burn. Credit: Blue Origin
New Glenn’s first stage has been designed and developed for reusability, allegedly up to 25 times, and the company’s vision of high cadence is based on the landing, recovery, and reuse of the boosters.
Now, let’s explore how a landing would go, where the booster would land, what happened on previous attempts and the chances of success on this one, and implications for the future.
Landing profile - How the landing works
About 3 minutes into flight, GS1 will shut down its engines, and the 2 stages will separate; as the second stage ignites the 2 BE-Us and begins its ascent, the first stage will coast in space for a few minutes, reaching an apogee of about 140 km as it flies downrange.
Then, its powerful RCS thrusters (able to provide 88.9 kN of thrust in any given direction) will reorient the stage and put it in the correct attitude for reentry in order to avoid major damage and heating. At about 50 km, GS1 will conduct its entry burn: 3 engines will ignite for a few seconds, slowing the booster down to avoid it being destroyed, and then they will shut down… by the time they do that, GS1 will be low enough for the atmosphere to start having an effect, and this is when the strakes (and especially the fins) will start to create aerodynamic lift and precisely target the landing point… Jacklin.
As GS1 keeps descending lower and lower, it will attempt a landing burn at an altitude of 3 km, igniting once again its 3 middle engines for 20 seconds, slowing it down; then, it will transition to just a single center engine at 80% of thrust and enter a semi-hover as it deploys its 6 landing legs over 8 seconds. Finally, if all goes well, the booster will touch down safely, and the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) will safe the booster by pumping nitrogen to allow for a safe detanking operation, as 6 transit stands secure the booster to the deck.
Once all these safety operations are complete, approximately 10 hours after landing, the crew of 14 can return onboard, since they had left Jacklin and boarded the tow vessel before the launch took place in order to get to a safe distance in case something happened.
And then, the 4-day trip back to Port Canaveral can begin; once there, the booster will be transitioned from vertical to horizontal using cranes, ready to roll back for refurbishment.
Jacklin - The place where the booster lands
Jacklin at port. Credit: Space OFFShore
GS1 is designed for downrange landings on a barge named “Jacklin,” named after Bezos’ mother. It is 116 m long and 46 m wide, and it has several unique features: 4 thrusters (2 at the aft and 2 at the front) allow it to stay in a predetermined position at sea, while its autonomous capabilities allow it to contrast even harsh conditions.
This barge was built between early 2023 and late 2024, entering operation just in time for New Glenn’s maiden launch; Jacklin is, for now, the only landing platform vessel planned by Blue Origin, but it is ready to serve its purpose.
Previous attempt, and what this landing means
This is not Blue Origin’s first rodeo: the first landing attempt took place on the very maiden flight of New Glenn, on January 16th, 2024, when the “So You’re telling Me There’s A Chance” booster attempted an ambitious landing after a flawless ascent and separation. We know that the RCS system performed nominally, reorienting the booster within 0.5° of the correct attitude in all axes; however, there seemed to have been issues during the entry burn: here, all 3 engines relighted for the burn while traveling at 8000 km/h, under 40 km of altitude; telemetry was lost about 10 seconds into the burn, at an altitude of 25 km and at a speed of 6900 km/h. While we aren’t familiar with nominal conditions, we can assume that the booster was going too fast while being too low; Blue Origin confirmed that the issue resided in the 3 engines not lighting correctly, and 7 corrective actions were found focused on propellant management and engine bleed control.
Now, Blue Origin is ready to try landing again, with the “Never Tell Me The Odds” booster: we can’t make accurate predictions, but Eric Berger reported that internal estimations hover around the 75-25 chance of success to failure. On one hand, this is only the second time they’re attempting to land with New Glenn, so unexpected problems might arise; in fact, they might get past the reentry burn and experience problems in the latest phases of descent. On the other hand, Blue has a lot of experience in landing New Shepard, so the final phases of descent might be smoother than we think.
However, the only sure thing is that it will be exciting: if successful, this will be the first landing of an orbital-class booster by a company that is not SpaceX, as well as the first for Blue Origin, and the biggest orbital-class rocket ever landed downrange or by the use of landing legs. The Falcon 9 boosters, in fact, are about half in width and 16 m shorter than GS1; the only rocket stages bigger would be Starship (by width and internal volume, as the initial SN prototypes landed using landing legs) and Super Heavy (which is much bigger but is caught mi
The 2025 road for New Glenn
On January 16, New Glenn reached orbit while successfully executing two burns of the BE-3U and the Blue Ring pathfinder, receiving data and performing well, all of this at the first attempt.
Despite the loss of the first stage, Blue Origin started the New Glenn history very well; this was corroborated on February 17 when NASA awarded Blue Origin the Category 1 Certification for New Glenn, for context. This is an important U.S. government certification and a big accomplishment for the team.
On March 31st, Blue Origin submitted the final report and fulfilled their obligations to the FAA regarding the NG-1 mission booster landing attempt, confirming that all debris landed in the designated hazard area with no threat to public safety and applying seven corrective actions, focusing on propellant management and engine bleed control improvements.
On April 4, New Glenn was selected as a National Security Space Launch heavy-lift provider under Phase 3 Lane 2, which supports critical missions of the U.S. defense and intelligence agencies, serving as an NSSL trusted partner.
The second chapter of New Glenn history started with the second stage of NG-2 arriving at the Blue Origin Integration Facility, followed by a successful hotfire of our two BE-3Us on this August 25th.
The New Glenn first stage was moved on October 8th to the Launch Complex 36 to be mated with the second stage. After the integration was completed on October 22nd, the NG-2 vehicle was moved to the LC-36 pad and lifted successfully.
The hotfire of the vehicle was successfully completed; all seven engines performed nominally with a 38-second duration test, including all seven engines operating at 100% thrust for 22 seconds.
With the ESCAPADE twin spacecraft now integrated as of November 7/8th and New Glenn rolling out to LC-36 on November 8th, the mission is on track to launch on the 9th.
Not only will the cargo be the protagonist, but the first stage will also try to perform the first successful landing and the first orbital-class rocket landing of Blue Origin.
Next year: what can we expect from New Glenn?
Next year is set to be a really interesting year for New Glenn, with several launches on the manifest.
The next mission will take the Blue Moon Mk.1 Pathfinder lander to the Moon for a landing attempt in January 2026, although the mission is likely to slip into the springtime. This mission will be the most interesting, since it will send what will be the biggest vehicle ever landed on the Moon (if the landing is successful), being 8 m high and 3 m wide, with an unprecedented payload capacity of 3 tons! Additionally, this mission will use the GS1-SN-002 booster, “Never Tell Me The Odds,” should it land on NG-2, making it the first time a company reuses the first booster it lands, and marking a significant milestone in the program by achieving reusability. Should the booster fail the landing, then Blue would need to prepare another booster, which is already under production; meanwhile, the second stage has already been static fired months ago.
Another interesting payload to be carried next year will be Elytra Mission 1, sending Firefly Aerospace’s Elytra vehicle into orbit for capability demonstrations.
There are also several 49-satellite launches for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation and possibly other commercial missions like BlueBird Block 2.
Next year is set to be an interesting year for New Glenn, with a manifest full of missions and the potential to receive new contracts. The question is, will it make it? I believe so.
We can’t wish enough luck to Blue Origin, NASA, and Viasat, but we can have all the hope for a successful mission. Go Blue Origin, Go NASA, Go Rocket Lab, Go Viasat, and Go New Glenn!
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