Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket Getting Closer to First Flight

Blue Origin took more steps towards the first launch of the New Glenn rocket yesterday with a successful static fire test and getting a launch license from the FAA.  The company has been hoping to launch before the end of the year, but it seems likely to slip into 2025.

Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, is providing minimal information about progress towards the launch, but did post on its website that the 24-second static fire test of the seven BE-4 engines that power the first stage went well. They use liquified natural gas (LNG) and liquid oxygen as propellant and were at 100 percent thrust for 13 of the 24 seconds.

Company CEO David Limp said on X (@davill) that all they have to do now is mate the payload to the rocket. The company’s Blue Ring Pathfinder payload is already encapsulated in the fairing.

Well, all we have left to do is mate our encapsulated payload…and then LAUNCH! Congrats to the many Blue folks on today’s test. Big day for our seven #BE4 engines, simultaneously firing for the first time for 24 seconds. Get this – a single BE-4 turbopump can fit in the backseat… https://t.co/nHx3t0KEYd pic.twitter.com/UQkS0cFWKT

— Dave Limp (@davill) December 28, 2024

Bezos himself posted on X: “Next stop launch” with a video of the static fire test (also called a Wet Dress Rehearsal).

Next stop launch pic.twitter.com/GQFz4XxEt5

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 28, 2024

Neither offered a date for when they plan to attempt the launch. During the Space Force Association conference two weeks ago, Lars Hoffman, Blue Origin’s Vice President of Government Sales, said they hoped to launch by the end of the year, “maybe for Christmas.”  That didn’t happen, but there still are a few days left before 2025 arrives. It’s possible they could get off before midnight Tuesday, but next year seems more likely.

The company typically is close-lipped about both New Glenn and their operational suborbital vehicle, New Shepard.  Both rockets are named after U.S. astronauts: Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space on a suborbital mission on May 5, 1961, and John Glenn, the first American to reach orbit on February 20, 1962.

Reporters based near New Glenn’s launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL are posting as much information as they can glean on their websites and social media outlets including NASASpaceflight.com (on X @NASASpaceflight), Spaceflight Now (on X @SpaceflightNow) and CBS News’ Bill Harwood (on Bluesky @rocketksc.bsky.social).

New Glenn is a large, reusable rocket: 320 feet (98 meters) tall with a 23-foot (7-meter) payload fairing. The first stage will return to land on a sea-based platform named Jacklyn several hundred miles downrange. The first stage generates over 3.8 million lbf of thrust.

Yesterday the FAA issued a license allowing Blue Origin to conduct orbital launches from CCSFS and return the first stages. The license is valid for 5 years.

Blue Origin manufactures the BE-4 engines and one of New Glenn’s competitors, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, also uses them. ULA has launched Vulcan twice and the BE-4 engines performed perfectly.

Blue Origin already has contracts to launch payloads for a number of customers including NASA and Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite internet system (Bezos founded Amazon and is still on its Board of Directors). They also plan to certify the rocket for national security space launches.