Ninety-eight meters high, a reusable first stage, the New Glenn is a much more anticipated rocket than was Ariane 6. Although with lower capacities, it is the only rocket that can claim to compete with the Starship. For Jeff Bezos, it is above all the key to a success capable of overthrowing Elon Musk’s SpaceX, or at least surviving it.
SpaceX has become a true empire, without equal… for now! Jeff Bezos bides his time, patiently, discreetly, with his company Blue Origin. His own empire benefits from a quiet strength, very different from that of SpaceXpropelled by the passion of its founder Elon Musk“friend” (or influencer) of Donald Trump, and great opponent of Jeff Bezos, including for the place of the richest man in the world.
The great battle, and Darwinism of the space ecosystem
Is commercial space just an eternal battle of billionaires? All American companies developing rockets with high capacity only seem to survive under this condition, unless they inherit a certain inertia with a catalog of launches filled with juicy government contracts, as is the case with the United Launch Alliance (ULA). But it’s not forever. Even ULA is threatened with being bought… by Jeff Bezos, according to some.
There are many start-up aiming to become the future ULA or the future SpaceX. But many have already thrown in the towel or are still in the middle of the cross, sometimes even losing billions of dollars, like Relativity Space whose value has fallen sharply, even though they were positioning themselves as a real competitor to Elon’s company. Musk. In this arenaJeff Bezos with Blue Origin remains the favorite to survive the supremacy of SpaceX, even to titillate it and, why not, overthrow it.
The New Glenn, the key to success
At 98 meters high, its first reusable floor and capacities twice as high as those of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, the large New Glenn rocket is Jeff Bezos’ main instrument to attack the omnipotence of Elon Musk. For more than twenty years, he supported its development by injecting billions of dollars from his personal fortune. This patient development – which is, however, years behind schedule – has made it possible to develop the New Shepard, a small reusable single-stage rocket which can send tourists into space for a few minutes.
Twenty-five New Shepard flights since 2015, including one failure (which fortunately did not cause any casualties, the capsule being empty that day), demonstrate solid experience in flight and reuse. Added to this is the maturity of the New Glenn engines. The BE-4, which powers the first stage, has already flown twice last year because Blue Origin supplies the engine to ULA for the first stage of its Vulcan rocket. The engine is therefore already satisfactory, eyes of the Pentagon, a valuable guarantor and also a potential important future customer of Blue Origin.
The New Glenn is ready to enter the world. Its manifesto is full, enough to allow the rate to be quickly increased, which will make it less expensive to the point of competing with SpaceX’s prices driven down by the massive deployment of satellites. Starlink. Blue Origin will be able to do the same, because the company also has a satellite megaconstellation to deploy: Kuiper fromAmazonanother asset of Jeff Bezos. Thus, the New Glenn positions itself admirably as a complement to the Starship. Both will redefine the codes of access to space.
