Investing.com -- Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin announced that its New Glenn rocket successfully reached its intended orbit during its NG-1 mission, marking a significant milestone for the company. The launch took place on January 16, 2025, at 2:03 a.m. EST from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The rocket’s second stage reached its final orbit after two successful burns of the BE-3U engines. The Blue Ring Pathfinder, a part of the mission, is receiving data and functioning well. However, the booster, named "So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance," was lost during descent.
Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, expressed his pride in New Glenn’s successful orbit achievement on its first attempt. He acknowledged the ambitious goal of landing the booster on the first try and expressed gratitude to the entire Blue Origin team for this significant milestone. He also indicated that the company would attempt another launch in the spring of 2025.
New Glenn is critical to Blue Origin’s mission to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon, harvest in-space resources, provide multi-mission, multi-orbit mobility through Blue Ring, and establish destinations in low Earth orbit. Future New Glenn missions are planned to carry the Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander and the Mark 2 crewed lander to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
The New Glenn program has several vehicles in production and multiple years of orders from customers including NASA, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, and several telecommunications providers. Blue Origin is also in the process of certifying New Glenn with the U.S. Space Force for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program to fulfill emerging national security objectives.
Jarrett Jones, Senior Vice President of New Glenn, declared the successful orbit as a new era for Blue Origin and commercial space. He expressed gratitude to the Blue Origin team for their hard work and to their customers and the space community for their continuous support. He also stated the company’s focus on increasing their launch cadence and manufacturing rates.
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