ESPAÇO
Lançamento do foguetão reutiliável da Blue Origin
January 16, 2025 - A Blue Origin, a companhia aeroespacial do multimilionário Jeff Bezos, pretende lançar o seu novo foguetão pesado New Glenn numa tentativa para competir com a SpaceX no mercado de lançamento de satélites.
Blue Origin will try again to launch the rocket on Jan 16 after calling off the debut launch because of ice buildup in critical plumbing.
First announced in 2016, the New Glenn rocket is meant to shuttle cargo, satellites, and, in the future, people into space. The rocket is named after John Glenn, the first NASA astronaut to enter the Earth’s orbit.
New Glenn’s first stage is powered by seven of Blue Origin’s powerful BE-4 engines, which run on liquified natural gas and liquid oxygen.
Blue Origin aims to reuse New Glenn’s first stage for at least 25 missions, as it’s designed to touch down vertically on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean following launch, allowing the company to retrieve it.
The rocket’s upper stage is disposable and carries Blue Origin’s payload. It’s capable of sending 45 metric tonnes to low Earth orbit. That is still less than the 150 tonnes a Starship will manage, but more than the 23 tonnes of SpaceX’s current workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9.
New Glenn is also key to Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite internet initiative, rivalling SpaceX’s Starlink.
- Jeff Bezos' space company tries again to launch massive new rocket after last-minute postponement (AP)
- New Glenn: Blue Origin’s big rocket launch (The Verge)
- Blue Origin scrubs first New Glenn launch attempt due to “vehicle subsystem issue” (SpaceFlight Now)
- New Glenn (Blue Origin)
- Mission NG-1 Flight Profile (Blue Origin)