Blue Origin Set For First Launch Of Giant New Glenn Rocket
Date
1/11/2025 3:02:57 PM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
AFP
Cape Canaveral: A quarter of a century after its founding, Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin is finally ready for its maiden orbital voyage on Sunday with a brand new rocket the company hopes will shake up the commercial space race.
Named New Glenn after a legendary astronaut, it stands 320 feet (98 meters) tall, roughly equivalent to a 32-story building -- and is set to blast off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in a launch window that opens at 1:00 am (0600 GMT).
"Pointy end up!" the company's CEO, Dave Limp posted on X alongside photos of the gleaming white behemoth.
With the mission, dubbed NG-1, Bezos, the world's second-richest man, is taking direct aim at the world's wealthiest: Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
These serve the commercial sector, the Pentagon, and NASA -- including, crucially, ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
"SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town, and so having a competitor.. this is great," G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP.
SpaceX, meanwhile, is planning the next orbital test of Starship -- its gargantuan new-generation rocket -- the very next day, upping the sense of high-stakes rivalry.
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