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Blue Origin Sticks First New Glenn Rocket Landing and Launches NASA Spacecraft (techcrunch.com) 68

Posted by BeauHD from the impressive-feats dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has landed the booster of its New Glenn mega-rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean on just its second attempt -- making it the second company to perform such a feat, following Elon Musk's SpaceX. It's an accomplishment that will help the new rocket system become an option to send larger payloads to space, the Moon, and beyond. Thursday's launch wasn't just about the landing attempt, though. Roughly 34 minutes after takeoff, the upper stage of New Glenn successfully deployed the rocket's first commercial payload: twin spacecraft for NASA that will travel to Mars to study the red planet's atmosphere. The pair of achievements are remarkable for the second-ever launch of such a massive rocket system. And it could put Blue Origin in position to compete with SpaceX, which dominates the world's launch market with its Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship rockets. You can watch a recording of the launch here.
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Blue Origin Sticks First New Glenn Rocket Landing and Launches NASA Spacecraft More

Blue Origin Sticks First New Glenn Rocket Landing and Launches NASA Spacecraft

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  • Cost per KG compared to Falcon 9 / Heavy? (Score:3)

    by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @06:17PM (#65794310)
    I cant imagine its a cheap as SpaceX is now, but I think Bezos has the gas to discount launch costs until they have pricing parity. Competition breeds innovation. This is good news. However, when Starship is doing payloads, it may make this unprofitable again.

    • I cant imagine its a cheap as SpaceX is now, but I think Bezos has the gas to discount launch costs until they have pricing parity. Competition breeds innovation. This is good news. However, when Starship is doing payloads, it may make this unprofitable again.

      This one New Glen took a bath on. They charged NASA like $20 million but the costs were closer to $70 million

    • However, when Starship is doing payloads

      That's some strong hopium.

      • Really? You think at this point SpaceX is just going to throw up its hands and say "never mind" on Starship? I'm trying to imagine why they would do that.

        • Who ever said that they would give up? They'll just keep stringing investors along for another decade just like Tesla does.

          • What part do you think they will not achieve? Theyâ(TM)ve got to the point where they can achieve orbital velocity, they can recover the booster, they can fire the engines in space to reenter, and they can deploy payloads. Thatâ(TM)s at least as good as New Glenn.

            • They are not returning Starships back to Earth and reusing them.....hell I have doubts they'll be able to land it in one piece at all. The only way it makes economic sense for Starship to be used as a payload delivery platform is if Starship can be not only reusable, but rapidly reusable. It's honestly the most idiotic design for an Earth to orbit platform one could think of. It's like if some dude, with no experience in the field what-so-ever, dreamed up some sci-fi rocket to get him to Mars. But he he

              • That's very easy to explain. Falcon was a rocket designed by real rocket scientists and experts in their field. Back then Elon actually listened to them. But for Starship he began to believe that he was competent enough in rocket science to make those calls and ignored anyone telling him otherwise. That's why it's such a mess, had multiple redesigns and can't really get anywhere. Starship will not deliver what was promised, because the design is inherently shit. First it was supposed to be carbon fiber (nod

                • Falcon was a rocket designed by real rocket scientists and experts in their field

                  Same with starship.

                  Back then Elon actually listened to them. But for Starship he began to believe that he was competent enough in rocket science to make those calls and ignored anyone telling him otherwise.

                  And you base this on...?

                  That's why it's such a mess, had multiple redesigns and can't really get anywhere.

                  How many rockets can you list that haven't had multiple iterations in the design before even making it to prototype? Falcon 9 certainly did. The merlin engine certainly did. Your username is quite appropriate, by the way.

                  First it was supposed to be carbon fiber (nod to OceanGate) but that turned out to be shit

                  Nobody tried to build starship out of carbon fiber. See if you can figure out what that means. I'll give you a few years.

                  Also, you likely have it in your head that subs can't be built out of carbon fiber and actually work well, and you, just like J

              • Okay... are Blue Origin returning second stages back to earth and reusing them? ...

                Didn't think so.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                They are not returning Starships back to Earth and reusing them.....hell I have doubts they'll be able to land it in one piece at all.

                The most recent test proved capability of doing this.

                Elon is a tool and a con man, but I never understood the hate boner people have for SpaceX.

                • I'm sure they'll go on to point out all the damage to the heat shield, and the leaks etc that occurred in the last test. And they'll carefully gloss over the fact that the heat shield had tiles missing deliberately to find out what happens if you lose tiles in all kinds of places.

                • You don't understand the hatred of a company owned by a truly despicable and dangerous man? I guess the concepts of ethics and principles are foreign to you.

                  • The only thing he's dangerous to is your ego, if we're being honest.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                    Agreed he's truly despicable. I'll also agree with dangerous as anyone who has that much money is dangerous by definition. There is nothing wrong with my understanding of ethics or principle. I also think SpaceX succeeds in spite of Musk and not because of him.

                    With all of that said, I fail to see how anyone's proclivities or politics play into whether or not a company they own will succeed at any given objective. I'd further argue that if you believe that someone is dangerous, you're fucking stupid if yo

              • They are not returning Starships back to Earth and reusing them.....hell I have doubts they'll be able to land it in one piece at all.

                They've already done that.

  • And then there were two (Score:3)

    by Smonster ( 2884001 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @06:20PM (#65794312)
    I hope the Mars portion is just as successful. It will be good to provide Space X with some completion. Even better that the competition is another domestic company.

    • Re:And then there were two (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @06:35PM (#65794354)

      I hope the Mars portion is just as successful. It will be good to provide Space X with some completion. Even better that the competition is another domestic company.

      And better still that it's two giant egos behind the companies that already clash sometimes. That type of rivalry can sometimes create innovations that wouldn't naturally occur without that form of competition.

  • Well done!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by ihadafivedigituid ( 8391795 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @06:36PM (#65794356)
    Congratulations to Blue Origin and the people who surely worked their asses off to make this happen!

  • It's good to see that another US company has achieved booster landing, however I don't think Blue Origin will be much, if any, of a competitor at all. It took BO 25 years to achieve this, a full 9 years after SpaceX landed on their first ocean platform and 10 years after SpaceX's first successful booster landing. Starship is going to put New Glenn out of business very soon and I don't see Blue Origin having the industrial mindset to design and build new rockets quickly. Falcon 9 is already a proven and much

    • Re:Too little, too late? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ogive17 ( 691899 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @06:48PM (#65794380)
      Not usually how markets work. You'll have the "ground breakers" which is Space X in this instance. They do most of the heavy lifting (pardon the pun) to develop a new product or service. Once they show it can be done, the copy cats enter the market. Their development will be much less because now they know how to do it.

      Obviously building rockets isn't cheap and won't get much competition but there's obviously a huge market for it.

      Not saying BO will succeed long term, just pointing out that being the 1st to a market doesn't guarantee a monopoly in most cases.

      • The thing is, Blue isnâ(TM)t learning lessons from SpaceX on how to do it. Theyâ(TM)re not building an incredibly cheep rocket thats fast to build and lets spacex innovate for them. Theyâ(TM)re building the lightest, most expensive possible rocket with intricate machining steps that require an age, and a ton of money to produce. No big sheet steel parts welded together, instead complex aluminium isogrid..

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Right. NASA, coordinating Boeing, Lockheed, North American, Rockwell, etc. were the first movers. SpaceX is the "copy cat" that takes the basic idea and mass produces it for a buck each.

        • Right. NASA, coordinating Boeing, Lockheed, North American, Rockwell, etc. were the first movers

          I'm not sure about the others, but NASA and Boeing were both claiming that reusable rockets would never be economical. The ESA called it a pipe dream. Several pundits throughout the industry wrote up numerous articles about it, right up until spacex began lowering the price to numbers that these guys were saying was impossible.

          Curious thing, that pretty much all of these (except the NASA report on it) can now only be found on the internet archive, wouldn't you say?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            McDonnel Douglas landed a rocket more than 20 years before SpaceX did. ATK, Pratt and Whitney, Boeing and Lockheed have all been involved in recovering boosters using parachutes.

            The point of booster recovery is to make them cheaper. SpaceX and Blue Origin are the second wave of manufacturers, focused on cost.

            • McDonnel Douglas landed a rocket more than 20 years before SpaceX did.

              What they "landed" was not orbital class. Not even close. The highest it ever went was two miles, with the rest of the flights being less than half of that. That is even less remarkable than the lunar lander during the Apollo program.

              ATK, Pratt and Whitney, Boeing and Lockheed have all been involved in recovering boosters using parachutes.

              Except they weren't actually reusable, they had to be completely re-manufactured, with basically no cost savings to speak of.

              The point of booster recovery is to make them cheaper.

              Precisely, and they never accomplished that in any meaningful way. It's worth mentioning that parachutes are not exactly soft landings. If you ever go sk

    • "If you arent doing things on the same timescale and using the same approach as the company I wank over, then you shouldn't even bother".

      Thats your post summed up in one sentence.

      • The attitude at spacex isn't what most people (both naysayers and supporters) usually think. Engineers generally like seeing other engineers succeed, especially with something as hard as space.

        • I generally agree with you, but I dont think the OP works at SpaceX, they are just a fanboi dissing on anything else - and they are the target of my comment.

  • Congratulations! (Score:5, Informative)

    by OwnedByTwoCats ( 124103 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @06:58PM (#65794412)

    Congratulations to Blue Origin! This is an accomplishment, and the fact that there are now 2 partially-reusable launch systems available should be great news for companies that want to put payloads into orbit.

    New Glenn is a much bigger rocket than Falcon 9, and bigger than even Falcon Heavy.

    New Glenn is fueled by Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Methane, so the first stage won't have coking issues like Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. We will see whether this gives Blue Origin an advantage in turning-around and re-launching the booster.

    And New Glenn has successfully launched payloads into orbit, something Starship has not done so far.

    • New Glenn is a much bigger rocket than Falcon 9, and bigger than even Falcon Heavy.

      Falcon heavy has higher payload capacity than New Glen

      As per https://www.spacex.com/vehicle... [spacex.com], payload to LEO 63,800 KG. Payload to GTO 26,700 kg. Payload to Mars 16,800 kg
      As per https://www.blueorigin.com/new... [blueorigin.com] , payload to LEO 45 metric tons (45,000 kg), payload to GTO 13 metric tons (13,000 kg)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by b_dover ( 773956 )
        It's note quite that simple. The Falcon Heavy payload depends on how many of the first stage boosters are re-used. The 63.800 kg LEO number is if no boosters are re-used. If all three are re-used, the LEO payload drops below 50,000 kg. The New Glenn payload is with first stage re-use, so the two rockets have similar payload capacity when boosters are re-used.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's not just the mass to LEO, it's the size of the payload it can carry. New Glenn has a larger diameter payload bay.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      New Glenn is about the same capacity as Falcon Heavy, maybe a touch less, both with full reuse. But SpaceX has also demonstrated recovering Super Heavy, which is a LOT bigger. You could pretty easily slap an expendable second stage on Super Heavy and the highest launch capacity ever.

      If my conversions of crazy American units are correct you could stick an entire fueled New Glenn on top of Super Heavy and launch it.

    • New Glenn has finally accomplished what SpaceX did in 2016 (Landing an orbital class booster on a platform at sea after sending an upper stage on its way), and I DO NOT intend to down-play what they have accomplished. I am simply pointing out that they have moved at a glacial pace for years now (many people forget that Blue is actually an older company than SpaceX). I truly hope that this is a sign that they are finally on course to move quicker and become a real competitor to SpaceX - the American taxpaye

  • Replacing the CEO helped? (Score:3)

    by blahbooboo2 ( 602610 ) on Thursday November 13, 2025 @08:56PM (#65794630)

    Guess that Amazon exec he brought in to replace the old space industry CEO made a difference.

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