At the second time of trying, Blue Origin successfully launched its orbital New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on early Thursday morning ET.
The first-ever launch of the New Glenn represents a major milestone for Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin spaceflight company, marking its entry into the orbital launch market and heavy-lift space industry, and setting it up to compete with the likes of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
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The countdown was far smoother than Sunday night’s launch attempt when the clock was paused multiple times before Blue Origin finally scrubbed the effort due to technical reasons.
The 98-meter-tall New Glenn rocket blasted skyward from Launch Complex 36, lighting up the Florida sky as it emitted nearly 4 million pounds of thrust, more than double that of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket though less than SpaceX’s heavy-lift Falcon Heavy.
The key aim of the mission is to reach orbit. A bonus will be the deployment of the Blue Ring Pathfinder payload, which is designed to test key technologies for the upcoming Blue Ring spacecraft. The payload includes a communications array, power system, and flight computer, and these will be evaluated during a six-hour mission while remaining attached to the rocket’s second stage.
An even bigger bonus will be sticking the landing of the New Glenn’s first stage, which will return to a platform floating in the ocean off the coast of Florida.
More to follow …