Blue Origin fired up its new heavy-lift orbital rocket for the first time just hours after receiving federal clearance to conduct its maiden launch.
Standing atop Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the company’s New Glenn rocket conducted a successful 24-second seven-engine hotfire on Friday night (Dec. 27). It was the first time that the entire launch vehicle operated as a integrated system.
“This is a monumental milestone and a glimpse of what’s just around the corner for New Glenn’s first launch,” said Jarrett Jones, Blue Origin’s senior vice president for New Glenn, in a statement. “[This] success proves that our rigorous approach to testing — combined with our incredible tooling and design engineering — is working as intended.”
The static firing of New Glenn’s first stage BE-4 rocket engines concluded a multi-day test campaign that included inert functional and tanking tests. The vehicle was configured with the first and second stages it will use on its first test flight, NG-1, and a payload test article made-up from manufacturing test demonstrator fairings, a high-capacity fixed adapter flight unit and a 45,000 pounds (20,400 kilograms) payload mass simulator.
NG-1 will carry the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a demonstrator for Blue Origin’s multi-mission space mobility platform designed to deliver payloads to geostationary orbit (GEO), cislunar and interplanetary space destinations.
“Well, all we have left to do is mate our encapsulated payload… and then LAUNCH!” wrote Dave Limp, Blue Origin’s chief executive officer, on the social media network X on Friday.
Blue Origin’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos agreed.
“Next stop launch,” Bezos said on X.
The hotfire test proceeded just hours after the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) issued Blue Origin a commercial space license authorizing the first launch of New Glenn. The FAA determined the company met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements.
“The license allows Blue Origin to conduct orbital missions from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with the reusable New Glenn first stage landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. It is valid for five years,” read a statement on the FAA’s website.
Standing more than 320 feet (98 meters) tall, the New Glenn features a reusable first stage designed to fly 25 missions. The stage’s seven BE-4 engines are the most powerful liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fueled oxygen-rich staged combustion engines ever flown. (In addition to powering New Glenn, Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines are also used by United Launch Alliance for its Vulcan rocket.)
“Get this – a single BE-4 turbopump can fit in the backseat of a car. When all seven pump fuel and oxygen from the BE-4’s common shaft, they produce enough horsepower to propel two Nimitz-class aircraft carriers at full tilt,” wrote Limp.
The hotfire and its associated test campaign set a number of firsts for the New Glenn launch system, including the first seven-engine operations, the first integrated tanking demonstration, the first LNG/LOX fill for the first rocket’s first stage, and the first chilled helium operations for the second stage.
A launch date for the NG-1 mission has yet to be announced, but is expected soon. Assuming a successful first flight, Blue Origin is poised to begin New Glenn launches for NASA, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, several telecommunications providers and a mix of U.S. government customers. The company is also certifying New Glenn with the U.S. Space Force for the National Security Space Launch program to meet national security objectives.