New Glenn, the rocket aligned by Jeff Bezos against SpaceX could hurt him

New Glenn, the rocket aligned by Jeff Bezos against SpaceX could hurt him
New Glenn, the rocket aligned by Jeff Bezos against SpaceX could hurt him

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SPACE – One more billionaire in the arena. In the early hours of this Thursday, January 16 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, New Glenn, Blue Origin’s new rocket, launched into the sky for the first time until it reached an orbit, as you can see in the video at the top of the article.

With this successful flight of a 98 meter high colossus, the space company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos enters the market for reusable launchers. As Elon Musk prepares to join Donald Trump’s government, it is of course his company SpaceX that is being targeted.

It took nine years between Jeff Bezos’ first announcement about the development of a heavy launcher by Blue Origin and the first flight of New Glenn. After a dress rehearsal for the firing of the rocket booster at the end of December, the space company received takeoff authorization from the FAA, the American regulator of the aviation sector. “Next step: takeoff,” Jeff Bezos tweeted at the time.

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The name of the rocket is a tribute to John Glenn, the first American to have made an orbital flight around the Earth, almost a year after the Soviet Yuri Gagarin. John Glenn is also known for opposing the Mercury 13 project, whose objective was to train women to become astronauts.

Questioned in Congress on the subject in 1962, he replied: “ Men go to war, fly the planes and return to help design, build and test them. The fact that women are not in this environment is a fact of our social order.” Not a problem for Jeff Bezos.

Competing with SpaceX and its Falcons

Elon Musk’s company dominates the space market with half of the world’s launches alone. It is also the main supplier to NASA: it sells its services for the use of its Crew Dragon capsule (and the failure of Boeing’s Starliner mission has strengthened its leading position). The American space agency also relies on SpaceX for its satellites, but also space exploration with the Falcon Heavy.

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For its part, the Amazon founder’s company has so far only distinguished itself through space tourism, carrying out short flights into space for millionaires willing to pay the price. However, it has not conducted any flights into orbit so far.

While SpaceX and Blue Origin were both created in the early 2000s, Elon Musk’s company is much further ahead than Jeff Bezos’. This launch nevertheless marks the advent, subject to reliability, of a challenger.

Twice as much loading

Blue Origin’s rocket does indeed have some arguments to its credit: New Glenn can transport up to 45 tonnes of cargo into low orbit, which is almost double that of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and this for a more or less equivalent price. , or between 60 and 70 million dollars per takeoff, according to CNN. A load which, however, remains less important than the Falcon Heavy which can transport up to nearly 64 tonnes.

If the launch of New Glenn is a success, other flights should follow in 2025. Blue Origin has already signed contracts with several clients, including NASA for a mission to Mars which should take off next spring.

SpaceX is of course far from having said its last word, and intends to maintain its leading position. In addition to the Falcon 9 and their insolent launch rate (96 in 2023 alone), Elon Musk’s company is covering its Starship megarocket. Currently in the testing phase, it has only successfully completed two flights out of six. This flight was therefore the seventh test. NASA is counting on Starship in particular for its Artemis 3 mission, which plans to send astronauts back to the Moon. Initially planned for 2025, it was first postponed to September 2026, then mid-2027.

Also see on HuffPost :

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