Blue Fire and Green Lights for New Glenn

The first integrated New Glenn launch vehicle has completed a hotfire test of its seven BE-4 main engines. The hot fire test was New Glenn’s final major pre-launch test campaign ahead of its debut mission, and acted as a full simulation of launch-day activities leading up to liftoff.  The test took place at Blue Origin’s LC-36 launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the 28th of December, 7:45 PM local time. The test lasted for a total of 24 seconds, and was heard clearly by locals over 20 miles away from the facility according to claims received by Space Scout. The test capped off several hours of activity observable at Blue Origin’s pad on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which started around noon. Heavy frost and venting was visible from both the rocket and pad infrastructure along with bright flames from the facility’s flare stacks, clear signs New Glenn was in active testing. The activity followed a similar flurry of activity observed on the 21st, likely a prior campaign attempting to complete the critical hot fire test.

The long awaited hot firing comes nearly a month after the flight New Glenn vehicle stood upright on its launch pad for the first time. Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, has made substantial progress over the past year to ready New Glenn for its first flight. At this time last year, the only publicly visible portion of the vehicle standing on the pad today was the tankage of the first stage, spotted during a movement between buildings at Blue Origin’s Rocket Factory on Merritt Island. In the time since, both stages completed assembly and numerous rounds of testing, first individually, and now together as an integrated rocket, in the goal of a launch by the end of 2024.

With only a single day left in 2024, and some final steps needed to ready New Glenn for its launch (designated as “NG-1”), it seems incredibly unlikely that New Glenn will be in the air by the time the ball drops on New Year’s Day. However, as Blue Origin looks to 2025 to begin flying New Glenn, another potential obstacle for New Glenn has been cleared: launch licensing. Just hours before New Glenn’s successful hotfire test, the FAA issued to Blue Origin the launch license for New Glenn’s first flight. The license covers only New Glenn’s first launch and is not a full operator’s license, meaning Blue Origin will need to wait for another license before subsequent New Glenn missions can fly.

For New Glenn’s first flight, Blue Origin is aiming to demonstrate a full operational mission architecture, with the upper stage, or GS2, carrying a payload into Earth orbit, and the first stage, or GS1, landing downrange on a landing platform vessel in the Atlantic Ocean. Under a standard operational circumstance, failure for GS1 to land successfully would be considered a permanent loss of a reusable vehicle and qualify as an incident requiring a stand down and investigation. However, Blue Origin’s launch license for the NG-1 mission stipulates that due to the experimental nature of the initial test flight, loss of GS1 during its attempt to land is a foreseeable outcome and will not trigger an investigation should the stage fail to hit its target.

With major testing completed and launch federally approved, New Glenn’s final steps to launch can begin. New Glenn was lowered horizontally on Monday, December 30th, and will soon be rolled back from LC-36’s launch pad and into the Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF). Within the HIF, New Glenn will receive the payload for its first flight, the Blue Ring Pathfinder. The Pathfinder is a prototype for Blue Origin’s Blue Ring spacecraft, a spacecraft aiming to provide numerous in-space services, and aims to demonstrate a variety of systems including power, telemetry, and communication. As described in a Blue Origin press release, Blue Ring is part of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)’s Orbital Logistics prototype effort, which is working with three private companies to “to provide logistics services enabling low-cost, responsive access to geostationary (GEO) and other exotic orbits beyond low Earth orbit (LEO).” As space-based assets become increasingly important in people’s day-to-day lives, for monitoring the health of the planet, and space further grows into a warfighting domain, the ability to control and maintain assets within crucial orbits becomes increasingly important; in this regard nations such as China and India are already making their own strides to match or exceed US capabilities. Despite similarities in mission goals, the Blue Ring Pathfinder that will launch aboard NG-1 appears to be unrelated to the DarkSky-1 mission announced by Blue Origin and the DIU back in March of this year, which was described as a co-manifested payload aboard the rocket of a TBA launch provider. Blue Ring Pathfinder’s mission is expected to last six hours in space, with the pathfinder remaining attached to the GS2 upper stage for the duration of its flight.

NG-1 will also serve as the first of two certification flights for New Glenn to enter active service launching payloads for the Department of Defense, similar to those conducted by ULA’s Vulcan-Centaur in 2024.

In the long term, it is uncertain  what Blue Origin’s mission manifest for New Glenn is in the coming year. The long-anticipated rocket missed the launch window for NASA’s EscaPADE mission earlier this year, which is now tentatively scheduled for a new launch window in the Spring of 2025. Similarly, licensing by the FCC issued earlier this year for the inaugural mission of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander suggest a launch within a similar timeframe, though Blue Origin has not released any images of the integrated lander for the flight or provided updates on its current status. Blue Origin also has long-held commitments to launching satellites for Amazon Subsidiary Kuiper System’s internet mega constellation, with New Glenn contracted for twelve individual launches. Kuiper is legally required to have 50% of its total satellite population launched before July 30th of 2026 under its license with the FCC, and its orbital population currently sits at 0%. Blue Origin is also competing for coveted National Security Space Launch contracts, with one agreement already awarded to the company in 2024.  All this to say: Blue Origin has their work cut out for them.

A date for NG-1 has not been publicly announced at this time, though there are suggestions an attempt could be possible around January 6th. Over New Glenn’s lengthy development Blue Origin has remained largely silent about the launch vehicle’s progress, but has simultaneously made bold claims towards the vehicle’s readiness and capability. In regards to the former: over the past several months, Blue Origin has begun to break its silence and be more open in disclosing assembly and testing milestones. With launch quickly approaching, the latter must be addressed: the time has come to test Blue Origin’s claims and demonstrate New Glenn’s true market potential. In 2025, New Glenn must be delivered to the launch market as a functioning product ready to begin work and waste no time beginning its ramp up to a full launch cadence.

Edited by Nik Alexander