Jeff Bezos' rocket New Glenn launches successfully on debut mission, as billionaire 'seeks to build a road to space'
16 January 2025, 08:08
Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin has successfully launched a giant reusable rocket into space.
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Lift-off took place from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday morning, with the 98-metre tall New Glenn rocket making for Earth's orbit.
The rocket carried an experimental platform designed to host satellites or release them into their proper orbits. The rocket is built to haul spacecraft and eventually astronauts to orbit and also to the Moon.
Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin's vice-president for in-space systems, said that the company would seek to "build the road to space for the benefit of mankind".
She said that the launch was "historic" and a "momentous step".
"The next era of space flight at Blue Origin is upon us," she added.
The mission was expected to last six hours, with the second stage then placed in a safe condition to stay in a high, out-of-the-way orbit in accordance with Nasa's practices for minimising space junk.
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Bezos himself, who founded the company 25 years ago, was pictured in the mission control room as the rocket took off.
He stepped down as CEO of Amazon in 2021 to focus more on Blue Origin.
New Glenn had been supposed to take off earlier this week, but the launch was delayed by ice in the plumbing.
Lift-off was delayed slightly further on Thursday morning by a boat that had drifted into the exclusion zone around Cape Canaveral.
One part of Thursday's mission failed: Blue Origin wanted to land the booster that launched the rocket into space on a landing platform in the ocean, but they missed.
The booster was called 'So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance'.
New Glenn itself is named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.
New Glenn is set to be a rival to Elon Musk's SpaceX, which has until now been the dominant player in the commercial space market.
Speaking after the launch, Mr Musk said: "Congratulations on reaching orbit on the first attempt! @JeffBezos".
New Glenn is the latest in a series of big, new rockets to launch in recent years, including United Launch Alliance's Vulcan, Europe's upgraded Ariane 6 and Nasa's Space Launch System or SLS, the space agency's successor to the Saturn V for sending astronauts to the moon.
The biggest rocket of all, at approximately 400 feet (123 metres), is SpaceX's Starship.
Mr Musk said the seventh test flight of the full rocket could occur later on Thursday from Texas. He hopes to repeat what he pulled off in October, catching the returning booster at the launch pad with giant mechanical arms.
Starship is what Nasa plans to use to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. The first two moon landings under the space agency's Artemis programme, which follows the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, will see crews descending from lunar orbit to the surface in Starships.
Blue Origin's lander, dubbed Blue Moon, will make its debut on the third lunar touchdown by astronauts.
Nasa administrator Bill Nelson pushed for competing moon landers similar to the strategy to hire two companies to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
Mr Nelson will step down when President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.
Mr Trump has picked tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to run Nasa. Mr Isaacman, who has twice rocketed into orbit on his own privately financed SpaceX flights, must be approved by the Senate.
New Glenn's debut was supposed to send twin spacecraft to Mars for Nasa. But the space agency pulled them from last October's planned flight when it became clear the rocket would not be ready in time.
They will still fly on a New Glenn rocket, but not until the spring at the earliest. The two small spacecraft, named Escapade, are meant to study the Martian atmosphere and magnetic environment while orbiting the red planet.
