Posted on 01/16/2025 6:38:22 AM PST by Red Badger
New Glenn at liftoff during the NG-1 mission.
Image credit: Blue Origin
At 2:03 am EST on January 16, Blue Origin’s New Glenn lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket is 98 meters (322 feet) tall, among the tallest around, and this first launch was a demonstration as part of the US Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program. It tested the Blue Ring spacecraft platform as well as the flight and ground system.
This first launch was also a test for the reusable first stage, which was supposed to land on a barge, the Landing Platform Vessel, floating in the Atlantic. Landing offshore on its first try was a tall order, and in fact, the booster was given a funny name: So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance.
“I’m incredibly proud New Glenn achieved orbit on its first attempt,” Dave Limp, 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.”
Blue Origin already has several customers lined up, including one of Jeff Bezos’ other enterprises, Amazon's Project Kuiper – a megaconstellation of satellites with over 3,000 of them. Megaconstellations have been criticized significantly for the increasing light pollution and radio interference they bring to Earth, as well as the increasing chance of a collision in orbit between so many new satellites.
New Glenn will also be used to launch Blue Moon, the lunar lander that is supposed to alternate with SpaceX’s Starship during the Artemis mission that will bring back people on the Moon.
"Today marks a new era for Blue Origin and for commercial space," said Jarrett Jones, Senior Vice President, New Glenn. "We're focused on ramping our launch cadence and manufacturing rates. My heartfelt thanks to everyone at Blue Origin for the tremendous amount of work in making today's success possible, and to our customers and the space community for their continuous support. We felt that immensely today."
Good point but the crazies still won’t buy it.
Falcon Heavy also can and frequently does fully expendable yeets. When it does it takes 140,000# with it or with just the center booster expended they can out 120,000# into LEO while landing the twin side boosters back on land, that in theory could double drone ship land the side boosters and get the same 140,000lb while expending just the center booster. The limit on the top end is structural for the second stage not the fuel needed to get it there. Having the boosters not have to do a boost back burn and just a landing burn leaves a nearly full center core at booster separation enough fuel to take the full 63 tonnes to LEO. SpaceX will never do a twin drone ship so it’s purely academic. Fully Expendable FH can be had for $150 million or less. Even with New Glenn Falcon Heavy is still the third largest launcher on earth behind SLS and Starship. NG slots in fourth place.
And that’s why the landing platforms are unmanned. 😳😊👍
“New Glenn is named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth.”
And a lot of SWAGs.
I believe Musk has stated that everything is possible within the limits of the laws of physics. And even then...
Yeah—there are a lot of very smart folks trying to figure out how to violate the “laws of physics”.
I like their chances.
The most important first step is belief that you can do it.
Yes. Or discovering that someone else, or something else, has done it.
I was irritated by their commentary, it seemed like they were almost oblivious to the communications of mission controllers.
Cool! I envy you! 🙂
It’s going to be exciting. I can’t wait. Got some chores to get out of the way first!
And a lot of SWAGs.
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There is a serious amount of “art” involved too, as in lots of years learning from your mistakes. Difficult to pass on that kind of learning.
Talking “mentors” here....
I predict they’re going to have big problems with that one 😧
Yeah, we got laid off/retired. 🤔😂👍
I predict they’re going to have big problems with that one
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That’s what ‘testing to failure’ means. Finding and fixing problems in real time, using fully assembled hardware, which leads to rapid development, every failure is a success because you know what does not work or what needs to be fixed/redesigned.
This is the opposite of usual procedures where, after years of individual component testing, a fully rigged example is tested with all components assembled together for the first time - NASA’s SLS for example. Then more years pass as the example is fine tuned or redesigned.
I was just kidding because I posted that AFTER the break-up. Easy to be a prophet that way!
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