Blue Origin transports New Glenn booster to launch website forward of Mars-bound mission – Spaceflight Now

Blue Origin is one step nearer to its second ever launch of its New Glenn rocket. On Wednesday morning, groups rolled the 189-foot-tall (57.5 m) booster from its schools at Rocket Park close to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to start its journey out to Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The firm introduced that the rocket was on the transfer round 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 UTC) because it was concurrently launching six house vacationers on a suborbital New Shepard launch from West Texas.

The booster, named ‘Never Tell Me the Odds,’ a nod to the well-known line from Star Wars, might be used throughout the upcoming launch of NASA’s Mars-bound Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission. A particular date for that hasn’t been introduced, but it surely’s probably in early November.

The twin satellites, named ‘Blue’ and ‘Gold,’ had been shipped from Rocket Lab’s services in Long Beach, California, to Florida in September for closing processing forward of the upcoming launch. The EscaPADE mission was initially deliberate for the inaugural flight of New Glenn, however that modified when it was clear that the rocket wasn’t going to be prepared for a launch in October 2024.

The EscaPADE mission, additionally known as New Glenn 2 or NG-2, comes about ten months after the inaugural flight of New Glenn in January, which carried an illustration of the corporate’s Blue Ring. Future model of that spacecraft might be able to internet hosting and deploying a number of payloads and performing orbital maneuvers as wanted.

During the 2025 International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney, Australia, final week, Pat Remias, Blue Origin’s vp of house programs growth mentioned they “fully intend” to get well the booster throughout the upcoming flight.

Like SpaceX, Blue Origin can also be utilizing a marine vessel designed as a touchdown pad for the primary stage boosters. Blue Origin tried to land its first booster, ‘So You’re Telling Me There’s A Chance,’ on the vessel referred to as ‘Jacklyn,’ however was unsuccessful.

“The final mishap report identified the proximate cause of the mishap as an inability of New Glenn’s first stage to restart the engines, preventing a reentry burn from occurring, and resulting in the loss of the stage,” the Federal Aviation Administration mentioned following the closing of the Blue Origin-led mishap investigation in late March.

“Blue Origin identified seven corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence of the event. The FAA will verify that Blue Origin implements corrective actions prior to the launch of the New Glenn-2 mission.”

Blue Origin is placing loads of religion into its means to land this subsequent booster. During the IAC, Remias mentioned if it’s efficiently recovered, Blue Origin will fly it on its third mission, which can carry the primary Blue Moon Mark 1, an uncrewed lunar lander.

“We will use that first stage on the next New Glenn launch,” Remias mentioned. “That is the intent. We’re pretty confident this time.”

For comparability, SpaceX landed its first booster on Dec. 21, 2015, about 5.5 years after its first flight. The first profitable touchdown on considered one of its drone ships didn’t come till April 8, 2016. It wouldn’t re-fly considered one of its boosters till March 30, 2017.

Blue Origin has been making strides in ramping up manufacturing for its New Glenn rockets, maybe most notably with cranking out second phases. The higher stage for the NG-2 mission was check fired at a stand close to the launch pad at LC-36 again in April and so they did the same check for the third higher stage in August.

The higher stage of New Glenn is powered by a pair of BE-3U engines, that are fueled by a mix of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The rocket’s booster makes use of seven of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines fueled by a mix of liquid methane and liquid oxygen.