The first New Glenn rocket went into orbit

Blue Origin launched its large New Glenn rocket for the first time on Thursday, a major milestone for the Jeff Bezos space company.

New Glenn thundered off the launch pad in Florida early this morning, reaching space and ultimately reaching orbit on its long-awaited debut mission. Blue Origin also attempted to land a launch vehicle on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, but the launch vehicle was lost during re-entry.

The launch is a defining moment for Blue Origin.

Although Bezos’ company was founded 25 years ago, it has yet to launch a flight into orbit – its much smaller New Shepard rocket can only fly humans and explore short walks to the edge of space. The New Glenn flight marks Blue Origin’s entry into a market it dominates Elon Musk SpaceX and is crucial for the disclosure of the big ambitions of the founder of centi-billionaire.

No one was on board the New Glenn, which was carrying a small test cargo into space. The rocket was named after the late John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.

Initially, the company aimed for the daring feat of managing NASA “ESCAPADE” mission to Mars during New Glen’s debut. But with launch time running short, the agency delayed ESCAPADE to a later launch. Blue Origin also has orders from AmazonThe Kuiper project has at least 12 launches of its Internet satellites, and plans to launch the Blue Moon lunar and orbital space station and an orbital reef. Bezos founded Amazon six years before Blue Origin.

Headquartered in the Seattle suburb of Kent, Washington, Blue Origin has more than 10,000 employees, as well as a half-dozen other major locations across the country, including industry hubs in Texas, Florida and Alabama. Earlier, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp told CNBC that Blue Origin has been in “kind of a research and development phase” for a long time, an aspect of the company’s culture he’s trying to change.

Blue plans to rapidly increase the cadence of New Glenn missions, aiming to complete 10 New Glenn launches this year. The rocket was originally scheduled to debut in 2020, but has faced years of delays.

A few minutes after launch, the launch vehicle separated and returned back through the atmosphere. Booster – titled “So You Tell Me There’s a Chance” – tried to land on the company’s barge Jacklyn about 600 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, but failed. Blue Origin’s webcast last showed the launch vehicle at about 84,000 feet.

While New Glenn did not deploy any satellites into orbit during its flight, it did carry a small demonstration version of the company’s “Blue Ring” spacecraft. Known in the industry as an Orbital Vehicle (OTV) or Space Tug, the Blue Ring is designed to host satellites and spacecraft and deliver them from a rocket to their intended target.

As usual for an orbital rocket debut, New Glenn’s launch ran into some bumps, with delays of several days due to technical problems with the rocket and weather.

The New Glenn-sized 30-story skyscraper is 322 feet tall, nearly as tall as the Saturn V rockets that carried the Apollo missions to the moon, and 23 feet in diameter. The Blue rocket is powered by seven of the company’s BE-4 engines, which together generate nearly 4 million pounds of thrust, and the New Glenn’s nose cone is wide and tall enough to launch three school buses into space at once.

The rocket runs on liquid oxygen and liquid methane and is designed to be partially reusable, as Blue Origin aims to launch, land and relaunch each launch vehicle up to 25 times.

In terms of mass delivered to orbit per launch, New Glenn sits between SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, while Blue Origin’s vehicle is designed to lift up to 45,000 kilograms (or about 100,000 pounds) into low Earth orbit .

Blue Origin does not disclose the total cost or launch pricing of its New Glenn rockets. Three years ago, Blue Origin said it had invested $2.5 billion to date in the development of New Glen. And competitors estimate that New Glenn sells for about $70 million per launch.

So far in the spaceflight industry, Blue Origin has not been involved in serious rocketry as the US launch market is still dominated by SpaceX, followed by Rocket laboratoryUnited Launch Alliance and Firefly Aerospace.

Blue Origin already has a foothold at New Glenn in the most profitable part of the launch market: Flying for the military. Last year, Blue Origin joined SpaceX and ULA in the Pentagon’s $5.6 billion Space Launch Program (NSSL), allowing the company to compete for contracts.

While Blue Origin has fallen behind SpaceX in this area, Bezos remains bullish on his company’s potential.

“I think it’s going to be the best business I’ve ever been involved in, but it’s going to take some time.” – Bezos said recently.

Jeff, welcome to the club.