New Glenn is a

heavy-lift An airlift is the organized delivery of supplies or personnel primarily via military transport aircraft. Airlifting consists of two distinct types: strategic and tactical. Typically, strategic airlifting involves moving material long distanc ...

orbital

launch vehicle A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, launch pads, supported by a missile launch contro ...

in development by

Blue Origin Blue Origin, LLC is an American private spaceflight, privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Am ...

. Named after

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

astronaut

John Glenn John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, engineer, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space, and the first American to orbit the Earth, circling ...

, design work on the vehicle began in 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. New Glenn is a

two-stage rocket A two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) or two-stage rocket launch vehicle is a spacecraft in which two distinct stages provide propulsion consecutively in order to achieve orbital velocity. It is intermediate between a three-stage-to-orbit launcher and a hy ...

with a diameter of . Its first stage will be powered by seven

BE-4 The Blue Engine 4 or BE-4 is an oxygen-rich liquefied-methane-fueled staged-combustion rocket engine under development by Blue Origin. The BE-4 is being developed with private and public funding. The engine has been designed to produce of thr ...

engines that are also being designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. Like the

New Shepard New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin for space tourism. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and vertical land ...

suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it, the New Glenn's first stage has been designed to be reusable since its inception in 2016. In 2021, the company initiated conceptual design work on approaches to potentially make the second stage reusable as well, with the project codenamed Project Jarvis. Originally aiming for first launch of New Glenn in 2020, Blue Origin has publicly announced delays on three occasions: to 2021 in late 2018, to fourth quarter of 2022 in early 2021, and to no earlier than Q4 2023 in March 2022.

History

After initiating the development of an orbital rocket system prior to 2012, and stating in 2013 on their website that the first stage would do a powered vertical landing and be reusable, Blue Origin publicly announced their orbital

intentions in September 2015. In January 2016, Blue Origin indicated that the new rocket would be many times larger than New Shepard even though it would be the smallest of the family of Blue Origin orbital vehicles. Blue Origin publicly released the high-level design of the vehicle and announced the name New Glenn — with both two-stage and three-stage variants planned — in September 2016.

Early development work on orbital subsystems

Blue Origin began developing systems for orbital human spacecraft prior to 2012. A reusable first-stage booster was projected to fly a suborbital trajectory, taking off vertically like the booster stage of a conventional multistage launch vehicle. Following stage separation, the upper stage would continue to propel astronauts to orbit while the first-stage booster would descend to perform a powered vertical landing similar to its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. The first-stage booster was to be refueled and relaunched to reduce costs of access for humans to space. The booster launch vehicle was projected to lift Blue Origin's biconic Space Vehicle capsule to orbit, carrying astronauts and supplies. After completing its mission in orbit, the Space Vehicle was designed to reenter

Earth's atmosphere The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

and land under parachutes on land, to be reused on future missions. Engine testing for the (then-named) Reusable Booster System (RBS) launch vehicle began in 2012. A full-power test of the thrust chamber for Blue Origin

BE-3 The BE-3 (''Blue Engine 3'') is a LH2/LOX rocket engine developed by Blue Origin. The engine began development in the early 2010s, and completed acceptance testing in early 2015. The engine is being used on the New Shepard suborbital rocket, ...

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an applica ...

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen (LH2 or LH2) is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point of 33 K. However, for it to be in a fully li ...

upper-stage

rocket engine A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accordanc ...

(BE-3U) was conducted on a stand at the

John C. Stennis Space Center The John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is a NASA rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi, United States, on the banks of the Pearl River at the Mississippi–Louisiana border. , it is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility. ...

(NASA test facility) in October 2012. The chamber successfully achieved full thrust of . By early 2018, it was announced that the BE-3U

hydrolox The highest specific impulse chemical rockets use liquid propellants (liquid-propellant rockets). They can consist of a single chemical (a monopropellant) or a mix of two chemicals, called bipropellants. Bipropellants can further be divided into ...

engine would power the second stage of the New Glenn.

Orbital launch vehicle

Design work on the vehicle began in 2012, with the beginning of BE-4 engine development. Further plans for an orbital launch vehicle were made public in 2015. By March 2016, the launch vehicle was referred to by the placeholder name of "Very Big Brother". It was stated to be a

two-stage-to-orbit A two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) or two-stage rocket launch vehicle is a spacecraft in which two distinct stages provide propulsion consecutively in order to achieve orbital velocity. It is intermediate between a three-stage-to-orbit launcher and a hy ...

liquid-propellant rocket A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket utilizes a rocket engine that uses liquid rocket propellant, liquid propellants. Liquids are desirable because they have a reasonably high density and high Specific impulse, specific impulse (''I''sp). T ...

, with the launcher intended to be reusable. In early 2016, Blue Origin indicated that the first orbital launch was expected no earlier than 2020 from the

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

launch facility, and in September 2017 continued to forecast a 2020 debut. In a February 2016 interview, Blue Origin president

Rob Meyerson Robert E. "Rob" Meyerson is an American aerospace engineer and executive known for his role in the development of reusable rocket launch systems. Meyerson is the founder of Delalune Space, a management consulting firm providing advisory services ...

referred to engine development and orbital launch vehicle milestones. The vehicle itself, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. New Glenn was described as a in diameter, two- or three-stage rocket, with the first and second stages being

liquid methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...

(

methalox The highest specific impulse chemical rockets use liquid propellants (liquid-propellant rockets). They can consist of a single chemical (a monopropellant) or a mix of two chemicals, called bipropellants. Bipropellants can further be divided into ...

) designs using Blue Origin engines. The first stage is planned to be reusable and will land vertically, just like the New Shepard

suborbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital r ...

launch vehicle that has been flying suborbitally since the early 2010s. Although these plans would subsequently change, the 2016 plans called for the first stage to be powered by seven of Blue Origin's

single-shaft oxygen-rich

staged combustion Staged combustion is a method used to reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides ( NOx) during combustion. There are two methods for staged combustion: air staged supply and fuel staged supply. Applications of staged combustion include boilers and ro ...

/liquid oxygen rocket engines, the second-stage to be powered by a single vacuum-variant of the BE-4 (

BE-4U The Blue Engine 4 or BE-4 is an oxygen-rich liquefied-methane-fueled staged-combustion rocket engine under development by Blue Origin. The BE-4 is being developed with private and public funding. The engine has been designed to produce of thru ...

) and the third stage to use a single

engine. In 2016, the first stage was planned to be designed to be reused for up to 100 flights. Blue Origin announced that they intended to launch the rocket from

Launch Complex 36 Launch Complex 36 (LC-36)—formerly known as Space Launch Complex 36 (SLC-36) from 1997 to 2010—is a launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Brevard County, Florida. It was used for Atlas launches by NASA and the U.S. Air Force ...

(LC-36), and manufacture the launch vehicles at a new facility to be built on nearby land in

Exploration Park Exploration Park is a partnership formed in 2011 between NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Space Florida. There are 299 Acres on KSC property, but outside the NASA badge controlled area. As of March 2016, companies have the opportunity to lea ...

Acceptance testing In engineering and its various subdisciplines, acceptance testing is a test conducted to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met. It may involve chemical tests, physical tests, or performance tests. In systems en ...

of the BE-4 engines was also announced to be planned for Florida. Blue explained in the 12 September 2016 announcement that the rocket would be named New Glenn in honor of the first American astronaut to orbit the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. Three weeks of

wind tunnel Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...

testing of a

scale model A scale model is a physical model which is geometrically similar to an object (known as the prototype). Scale models are generally smaller than large prototypes such as vehicles, buildings, or people; but may be larger than small prototypes ...

New Glenn were completed in September 2016 in order to validate the CFD design models of

transonic Transonic (or transsonic) flow is air flowing around an object at a speed that generates regions of both subsonic and supersonic airflow around that object. The exact range of speeds depends on the object's critical Mach number, but transonic ...

and supersonic flight. In March 2017, Jeff Bezos showed graphics of the New Glenn which had two large strakes at the bottom of the booster.Jeff Bezos' interview at SATELLITE 2017 (23 min)
, circa March 2017 In the September 2017 announcement, Blue announced a much larger payload fairing for New Glenn, this one in diameter, up from in the originally announced design. By March 2018, the launch vehicle design had changed. It was announced that the New Glenn second stage will now be powered by two vacuum versions of the flight proven BE-3 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine (BE-3U) with a single BE-3U engine for the third stage deep space option. The three stage booster variant was subsequently cancelled completely in January 2019. By mid-2018, the

low-level design Low-level design (LLD) is a component-level design process that follows a step-by-step refinement process. This process can be used for designing data structures, required software architecture, source code and ultimately, performance algorithms ...

was not yet complete and the likelihood of achieving an initial launch by 2020 was being called into question by company engineers, customers, industry experts, and journalists. In October 2018, the Air Force announced Blue Origin was awarded US$500 million for development of New Glenn as a potential competitor in future contracts, including

Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle National Security Space Launch (NSSL) — formerly Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) from 1994 to 2019 — is a program of the United States Space Force (USSF) intended to assure access to space for United States Department of Defense and ...

(EELV) Phase 2. The October 2018 award was terminated in December 2020 after receiving US$255.5 million of the US$500 million. By February 2019, several launches for New Glenn had been contracted: five for

OneWeb OneWeb (legally Network Access Associates Ltd) is a communications company that aims to build broadband satellite Internet services. The company is headquartered in London, and has offices in Virginia, US and a satellite manufacturing facility ...

, an unspecified amount of

Telesat Telesat, formerly Telesat Canada, is a Canadian satellite communications company founded on May 2, 1969. The company is headquartered in Ottawa. History Telesat began as Telesat Canada, a Canadian Crown corporation created by an Act of Parli ...

, one each for

Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it is the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Eutelsat's satellit ...

, mu Space Corp and

SKY Perfect JSAT The SKY Perfect JSAT Group is a Japanese corporate group that claims to be Asia's largest satellite communication and multi-channel pay TV company. It owns the SKY PerfecTV! satellite broadcasting service and the SKY Perfect Well Think content s ...

. In February 2019, Blue Origin indicated that no plans to build a reusable second stage were on the company's roadmap. In the event, by July 2021, Blue was evaluating options for getting to a reusable second-stage design:

Project Jarvis Blue Origin, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, the company i ...

. In August 2020 the Air Force announced that New Glenn was not selected for the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 launch procurement. Due to this, in February 2021 Blue Origin announced that the first flight would slip to no earlier than late 2022. By December 2020, Blue Origin indicated that the BE-4 engine delivery to ULA would slip to summer 2021, and ULA disclosed that the first launch of the New Glenn competitor ULA

Vulcan Centaur Vulcan Centaur is a two-stage-to-orbit, heavy-lift launch vehicle that is under development by the United Launch Alliance (ULA) since 2014 with an initial flight expected in early 2023. It is principally designed to meet launch demands for the ...

would now be no earlier than 4Q 2021. Blue announced a further schedule slip for the first launch of New Glenn in March 2021 when the company said New Glenn "would not launch until the fourth quarter of 2022, at the earliest." By 2021, Blue had reduced the published reuse specification for New Glenn to a minimum of 25 flights, from the previous design of 2016 to support up to 100 flights. By March 2022, planning for the first flight of New Glenn had slipped to no earlier than January 2023

"Jarvis" reusable upper stage

Information became public in July 2021 that Blue Origin had begun a "project to develop a fully reusable upper stage for New Glenn," under the name "Project Jarvis", just as

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

is aiming to do with their Starship second stage. If Blue is able to realize such a second stage design and bring it into operational use, New Glenn would become a fully-reusable launch vehicle and would benefit from a substantial reduction in cost per launch. Beyond the technical changes indicated, Bezos has created a new management structure for the new efforts, walling off "parts of the second-stage development program from the rest of Blue Origin

elling ''Elling'' is a Norwegian Black comedy film directed by Petter Næss. Shot mostly in and around the Norwegian capital Oslo, the film, which was released in 2001, is primarily based on Ingvar Ambjørnsen's novel ''Brødre i blodet'' ("Blood bro ...

its leaders to innovate in an environment unfettered by rigorous management and paperwork processes." No budget has been publicly released. One part of the effort is focusing on developing a

stainless steel Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...

propellant tank and main structure for the second stage rocket, and evaluating it as a part of a solution for a complete second stage system. By 24 August, Blue had rolled a stainless steel test tank to their

facility, on which ground pressure testing with cyrogenic propellants could begin as early as September. In addition to the Jarvis team working on a new second stage tank design, Blue Origin has set up another team to focus on design approaches that might be used to make a New Glenn second stage reusable, something that was not a design objective for the original second stage for New Glenn prior to 2021. , three approaches are being explored: adding

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...

s to allow the stage to operate as a

spaceplane A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer space. To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbital spaceplanes ten ...

reentry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the entr ...

; using an

aerospike engine The aerospike engine is a type of rocket engine that maintains its aerodynamic efficiency across a wide range of altitudes. It belongs to the class of altitude compensating nozzle engines. Aerospike engines have been studied for several years an ...

on the second stage that could double as a heat shield on reentry; and an approach similar to SpaceX's Starship concept using high- drag flaps in combination with propulsive deceleration. A decision on which approach to take into full development was slated for later in 2021.

Description and technical specifications

The New Glenn is a in diameter two-stage orbital launch vehicle with a reusable first stage and an

expendable ''Expendable'' is a science fiction novel by the Canadian author James Alan Gardner, published in 1997 by HarperCollins Publishers under its various imprints.Avon Books; HarperCollins Canada; SFBC/AvoNova. Paperback edition 1997, Eos Books. It i ...

second stage. An optional third stage was envisaged with a single BE-3U engine, and was planned as of October 2018. The first stage is designed to be reusable for a minimum of 25 flights, and will land vertically, a technology previously developed by Blue Origin and tested in 2015–2016 on its New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle. The second stage will share the same diameter as the first and use two BE-3U vacuum optimized engines. It will use hydrogen/oxygen as propellant and will be expendable. This engine is manufactured by Blue Origin. The company has revealed the planned full operational payload capacity of the two-stage version of New Glenn as to GTO and to a 51.6° inclined LEO, though the initial operating capability may be somewhat lower. Dual-satellite launches will be offered after the first five flights. Both stages will use orthogrid

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...

tanks with welded aluminum domes and common bulkheads. Both stages will also use

autogenous pressurization Autogenous pressurization is the use of self-generated gaseous propellant to pressurize liquid propellant in rockets. Traditional liquid-propellant rockets have been most often pressurized with other gases, such as helium, which necessitates ca ...

. The first stage will be powered by seven

methane/oxygen engines — designed and manufactured by Blue Origin — producing of liftoff

thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ...

. The second stage will be powered by two BE-3U engines, also designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. BE-3Us are an

expander cycle The expander cycle is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. In this cycle, the fuel is used to cool the engine's combustion chamber, picking up heat and changing phase. The now heated and gaseous fuel then powers the turbine that drives ...

variant of the BE-3 engine, which are explicitly designed for use in upper stages.BE-3 test update
, Blue Origin, 10 August 2018, accessed 15 August 2018] Preliminary design numbers from 2015 projected the BE-3U to have a vacuum thrust of . Launches of the New Glenn are planned to be made from

(LC-36), which was leased to Blue Origin in 2015. A launch site at

Vandenberg Space Force Base Vandenberg Space Force Base , previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a United States Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Established in 1941, Vandenberg Space Force Base is a space launch base, launching spacecraft from th ...

is also planned. New Glenn will also be available for

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

flights, with priority given to customers of

. The first stage boosters of New Glenn are intended to be reusable, and were originally intended to be recovered downrange on the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

via their landing platform ship Jacklyn, which would have acted as a floating movable landing platform. The hydrodynamically stabilized ship would have increased the likelihood of successful recovery in rough seas. Currently there are no clear plans to follow through with ship based recovery as they have scrapped Jacklyn, and the ship has now been sold for scrap. It is not known yet what this means for the reusability of New Glenn. Blue origin could use a barge, similar to how SpaceX currently recovers their boosters, but this could potentially be complicated due to its size.

Manufacturing

The main assembly of the New Glenn launch vehicle will occur in the Blue Origin rocket manufacturing facility in

, near

(LC-36) which the company leased from

Spaceport Florida Space Florida is the aerospace economic development agency of the State of Florida. The agency was created by consolidating three existing state space entities into a single new organization via the Space Florida Act, enacted in May 2006 by the ...

. Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) has hosted more than 100 launches, formerly launching the Atlas II and Atlas III. Tooling and equipment for the factory began to be ordered and built in 2015. In July 2018, the build of the largest device, a tall × long × wide

Ingersoll Ingersoll may refer to: People *Ingersoll (surname) *Ingersoll Lockwood (1841–1918), American lawyer and writer Places Canada * Ingersoll, Ontario United States * Ingersoll, Oklahoma * Ingersoll, Wisconsin * Ingersoll Township, Michigan * ...

"Mongoose" cryogenic-tank and fairing fabrication machine, was completed after a three-year design/build process. It will be installed in the Florida facility in

later in 2018. , Blue Origin had invested over US$1 billion in its Florida manufacturing facility and launch site, and intends to spend much more going forward.

Launch services

Blue will offer both single-payload dedicated flights and, after the fifth launch, dual-manifesting of large

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...

s to be

transported ''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln. It is considered a lost film. Plot In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she w ...

geostationary transfer orbit A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit. Satellite, Satellites that are destined for geosynchronous orbit, geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into ...

(GTO). All contracted launches from the start will feature a reusable first-stage, so just like the practice in commercial aircraft transport, landing conditions can affect the timing and flight parameters of a launch.

Launch service customers

By 2018, Blue Origin had contracts in place with four customers for New Glenn flights.

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

startup mu Space Corp and

have

geosynchronous orbit A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...

communications satellite launches planned after 2020, while internet satellite constellation fleet operator

has an agreement for five launches. In January 2019,

signed a multi-launch contract "to launch satellites for its future low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation on multiple New Glenn missions" and thus is Blue's fifth customer. In 2022,

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

announced that it had contracted 15 flights of New Glenn, with an option for 18 more, for deployment of the Kuiper satellite constellation. Amazon, founded by Blue Origin owner

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former preside ...

, had also ordered 38 launches of

Vulcan Vulcan may refer to: Mythology * Vulcan (mythology), the god of fire, volcanoes, metalworking, and the forge in Roman mythology Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * Vulcan (''Star Trek''), name of a fictional race and their home p ...

from ULA and 18 launches of

Ariane 6 Ariane 6 is a European expendable launch system currently under development since the early 2010s by ArianeGroup on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA). It is intended to replace the Ariane 5, as part of the Ariane launch vehicle family. ...

from

Arianespace Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider. It undertakes the operation and marketing of the Ariane programme. The company offers a number of different launch vehicles: the heavy ...

Schedule-oriented launch cadence

Blue intends to contract for launch services a differently to contract options that have been traditionally offered in the commercial launch market. The company has stated they will contract to aim to have a regular launch cadence of up to eight launches a year. If one of the payload providers for a multi-payload launch is not ready on time, Blue will hold to the launch timeframe, and fly the remaining payloads on time at no increase in price. This is different from how dual-launch manifested contracts have been traditionally handled by

(

Ariane 5 Ariane 5 is a European heavy-lift space launch vehicle developed and operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It is launched from the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) in French Guiana. It has been used to deliver payloads int ...

and

) and

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational engineering, electrical equipment and electronics corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. MHI is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group and its automobile division is the predecessor of Mitsubishi Mo ...

(

H-IIA H-IIA (H-2A) is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. These liquid fuel rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit; lunar or ...

and H3).

and

International Launch Services International Launch Services, Inc. (ILS) is a joint venture with exclusive rights to the worldwide sale of commercial Angara and Proton rocket launch services. Proton launches take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan while Angara is l ...

can offer dual-launch contracts, but prefer dedicated missions.

Funding

The

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped * Photograph ...

and manufacture of the New Glenn is being funded by

, founder of

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

, and the

Department of the Air Force The United States Department of the Air Force (DAF) is one of the three military departments within the Department of Defense of the United States of America. The Department of the Air Force was formed on September 18, 1947, per the National Sec ...

. Initially funded entirely by Bezos, after 2019 New Glenn will also receive US$500 million in funding under the

United States Space Force The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and the world's only independent space force. Along with its sister branch, the U.S. Air Force, the Space ...

National Security Space Launch National Security Space Launch (NSSL) — formerly Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) from 1994 to 2019 — is a program of the United States Space Force (USSF) intended to assure access to space for United States Department of Defense and o ...

(NSSL) program. By September 2017, Bezos had invested US$2.5 billion into New Glenn.

References

External links

*
New Glenn: The Road to Space
on YouTube by Blue Origin {{US launch systems Blue Origin launch vehicles Space tourism VTVL rockets Proposed reusable launch systems John Glenn