Blue Origin's New Glenn to make first orbital launch

CAPE CANAVERAL: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is set to launch its first ever orbital rocket next week, seeking to mark a pivotal moment in the commercial space race currently dominated by SpaceX owned by Elon Musk.

The rocket, named New Glenn, is scheduled for liftoff as soon as Wednesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 1am (0500 GMT), with a backup window on Friday, as per a Federal Aviation Administration advisory.

While Blue Origin has not officially confirmed the launch date, excitement has been building since a successful "hot-fire" test on December 27.

"Next stop launch," Bezos declared on X, sharing a video of the towering rocket's engines roaring to life.

The NG-1 mission will carry a prototype of Blue Ring, a Defence Department-funded spacecraft envisioned as a versatile satellite deployment platform, which will remain on board the rocket's second stage for the duration of the six-hour test flight.

It will mark Blue Origin's long-awaited entry into the lucrative orbital launch market after years of suborbital flights with its smaller New Shepard rocket, which carries passengers and payloads on brief trips to the edge of space.

"The market is really orbital," analyst Laura Forczyk, founder of Astralytical, told AFP.

"Suborbital can only take you so far — there are only so many payloads and customers for a quick ride to space," she added.

Space barons

The milestone will also escalate the rivalry between Bezos, the world's second-richest person, and Musk, the wealthiest, who has cemented SpaceX's dominance and is now in President-elect Donald Trump's inner circle.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets have become industry workhorses, serving clients from commercial satellite operators to the Pentagon and Nasa, which relies on them to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

Like Falcon 9, New Glenn features a reusable first stage designed to land vertically on a ship at sea.

The vessel, playfully named "So You're Telling Me There's a Chance," reflects the challenge of landing a reusable rocket on the first attempt, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said on X.

At 320 feet (98 metres), New Glenn dwarfs the 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed to carry larger, heavier payloads.

It slots between Falcon 9 and its larger sibling, Falcon Heavy, in cargo capacity while burning cleaner liquid natural gas rather than kerosene and relying on fewer engines.

"If I were still a senior executive at Nasa, I'd be thrilled to finally have some competition to the Falcon 9," Nasa's former "Mars Czar" now at Stanford University G Scott Hubbard told AFP, adding that increased competition could help drive down launch costs.