New Glenn is a heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by Jeff Bezos. Named for astronaut John Glenn, the two-stage rocket stands 98 meters tall, carries up to 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit inside a 7-meter payload fairing, and features a first stage designed to land on a ship at sea and fly up to 25 times.[1]
The rocket reached orbit on its first attempt in January 2025 and, on its second flight in November 2025, launched NASA's ESCAPADE probes toward Mars while landing its booster offshore, making Blue Origin only the second company after SpaceX to recover an orbital-class booster from a satellite delivery mission.[2][3]
The program suffered a major setback on May 28, 2026, when the third New Glenn vehicle exploded during a static fire test at Cape Canaveral, destroying the rocket and heavily damaging Launch Complex 36, the vehicle's only launch site. Blue Origin says it intends to return to flight before the end of 2026.[4][5]
Development
Blue Origin announced New Glenn in September 2016 after years of quiet work, promising a rocket sized between Falcon 9 and Saturn V and powered by the company's own BE-4 engine, a staged-combustion design burning liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen. The BE-4 also powers the first stage of ULA's Vulcan Centaur, making Blue Origin both a launch competitor and an engine supplier to its rival.[1]
First flight, originally targeted for 2020, slipped repeatedly as the company built a factory at Exploration Park in Florida, rebuilt the former Atlas pad at Launch Complex 36, and matured the BE-4. By the time the rocket debuted it had a customer backlog that included Amazon's satellite constellation, US Space Force national security missions, and Blue Origin's own lunar landers.[1]
Design and specifications
| Parameter | New Glenn |
|---|---|
| Height | 98 m |
| Diameter | 7 m |
| Fairing | 7 m diameter, roughly double the volume of 5 m fairings |
| First stage engines | 7 BE-4 (liquefied natural gas / liquid oxygen) |
| Liftoff thrust | About 17,100 kN (3.85 million lbf) |
| Second stage engines | 2 BE-3U (liquid hydrogen / liquid oxygen) |
| Payload to low Earth orbit | 45,000 kg |
| Payload to geostationary transfer orbit | More than 13,000 kg |
| Booster recovery | Downrange landing on ship, rated for 25 flights |
The first stage lands about 1,000 kilometers downrange on Jacklyn, a landing platform vessel named for Bezos's mother, using aerodynamic strakes and fins for control and relighting three BE-4 engines for descent. The hydrogen-fueled second stage is expendable, though Blue Origin has studied recoverable versions under Project Jarvis. The oversized fairing is a selling point for voluminous payloads such as megaconstellation stacks and space station modules, a key element of the reusable rocket economics the company is pursuing.[1]
Flight history
| Flight | Date | Payload | Orbit result | Booster landing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG-1 | January 16, 2025 | Blue Ring Pathfinder | Success | Failed (lost during descent) |
| NG-2 | November 13, 2025 | NASA ESCAPADE, Viasat technology demo | Success | Success on Jacklyn |
NG-1 lifted off from Launch Complex 36 on January 16, 2025 and placed the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a test version of the company's orbital transfer vehicle, into its planned orbit. The booster, nicknamed "So You're Telling Me There's a Chance," was lost when its engines failed to relight properly for the landing burn.[1]
NG-2 followed on November 13, 2025, dispatching the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft, a NASA mission to study how the solar wind strips the Martian atmosphere, onto a trajectory that will take them to Mars after a loiter period. The first stage, "Never Tell Me the Odds," touched down on Jacklyn about 600 kilometers off the Florida coast, the first successful ship landing of an orbital booster by any company other than SpaceX. Blue Origin intends to refly the recovered stage.[2][3]
2026 static fire explosion
At about 9:00 p.m. Eastern on May 28, 2026, the third New Glenn booster, "No, It's Necessary," exploded at the start of a static fire test at Launch Complex 36 with a fueled second stage attached. No one was injured and no payload was aboard, but the blast destroyed the vehicle, collapsed a lightning tower, wrecked the transporter-erector, and damaged the launch tower.[4][5]
Inspections eased the worst fears: chief executive Dave Limp said on June 1 that the propellant tanks and water tower were largely intact and the launch tower could be repaired rather than replaced. Crews cleared all wreckage from the pad within nine days, and the company said it would accelerate a planned switch from the destroyed transporter-erector to a vertical integration approach. As of June 30, 2026, Blue Origin had not identified the root cause. Limp has targeted a return to flight before the end of 2026 while continuing to build and store new stages; outside analysts have called that timeline aggressive, with some estimating pad reconstruction could take a year or more. The recovered NG-2 booster and three second stages stored nearby were undamaged.[4][6]
Blue Moon and Artemis role
New Glenn is the designated launcher for Blue Origin's Blue Moon lunar landers. The robotic Blue Moon MK1, which was to fly a lunar cargo pathfinder mission carrying NASA instruments on an upcoming New Glenn launch, is now waiting on the pad rebuild. The larger crewed MK2 lander is under contract as the human landing system for the Artemis program's Artemis V mission, so the explosion's schedule ripple reaches NASA's return to the Moon. Blue Origin also holds US Space Force national security launch certification work and NASA science assignments for the rocket.[7]
Amazon Leo and the market
Amazon's Leo broadband constellation (formerly Project Kuiper) purchased 12 New Glenn launches with options for 15 more as part of the largest commercial launch procurement in history, and heavy-lift capacity remains scarce industry-wide while Vulcan works through an investigation and Starship remains in testing. The May 2026 failure therefore tightened an already constrained launch market, leaving customers with fewer near-term alternatives and raising the stakes for New Glenn's return to flight.[5][7]
References
- New Glenn - Wikipedia.
- New Glenn Launches NASA's ESCAPADE, Lands Fully Reusable Booster - Blue Origin.
- New Glenn launches NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission, lands booster - SpaceNews.
- 2026 New Glenn rocket explosion - Wikipedia.
- Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explodes during prelaunch testing at Cape Canaveral - Spaceflight Now.
- Blue Origin plans to fly New Glenn rocket again this year despite massive rocket explosion - Space.com.
- How Blue Origin's rocket explosion affects NASA's moon plans - Space.com.
