Blue Origin successfully launches New Glenn rocket into space

Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company Blue Origin on Thursday launched its new mega-rocket, called New Glenn, into orbit for the first time.

The rocket lifted off at 2:03 a.m. ET on January 16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and crossed the official boundary into space a few minutes later. Shortly after, a second-stage burn placed the rocket’s upper section into orbit around the Earth.

While it was the rocket’s inaugural launch, a number of things went right, and the company had said that reaching orbit safely was its main objective. However, the rocket’s first stage exploded on the way back down to Earth as Blue Origin attempted to land that section on a drone ship at sea. The company hopes to launch again this spring, and plans as many as eight New Glenn launches this year.

“I’m incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt,” Dave Limp, former Amazon executive and CEO of Blue Origin, said in a statement. “We knew landing our booster, ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,’ on the first try was an ambitious goal. We’ll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring. Thank you to all of Team Blue for this incredible milestone.”

The successful launch kicks off a new era for Blue Origin, which until now has been stuck with a rocket (called New Shepard) that is not designed to go into orbit, which limits its usefulness. Blue Origin needs New Glenn to succeed in order to build a solid launch business and take on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has dominated the industry in recent years.

First revealed in 2016, New Glenn stands 320 feet tall and is powered by seven BE-4 engines, which Blue Origin also designed. The company initially hoped to launch the mega-rocket as early as 2021, but the costly development process took longer than expected. Along the way, Blue Origin spent time locked in legal battles with NASA and SpaceX over launch contracts, and was accused of cutting corners on safety by multiple employees.

Blue Origin now hopes to use New Glenn to launch satellites and other spacecraft, including some that it is designing for the moon. The company already has contracts with NASA, the Space Force, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and others.

It also hopes to one day launch astronauts to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis project. That said, NASA’s focus is always shifting with the political winds, and Musk — who has forged a deep relationship with incoming president Donald Trump — has said the “Moon is a distraction.”

Bezos told the press this week that he thinks there’s room for “multiple winners” in the industry.