Blue Origin will launch a rocket to challenge SpaceX’s Starship

On a launch pad that has been dormant for nearly two decades in Florida, a new 300-foot-tall rocket developed by Blue Origin is about to make its first flight. The unmanned vehicle, named New Glenn, will mark Blue Origin’s first attempt to launch a rocket into orbit, a necessary achievement if the company wants to shake SpaceX’s dominance in the aerospace industry. no universe, according to CNN.

New Glenn will take off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station this week. As tall as a 30-story building, the rocket consists of several parts. The boosters on the first stage will provide initial thrust upon takeoff. Placed above the booster is an upper stage containing a cargo compartment protected by a cone.

In an effort to emulate the success that SpaceX has achieved in reusing boosters over the past decade, Blue Origin also aims to control New Glenn’s first-stage boosters to land safely on a barge at sea carrying named Jacklyn minutes after launch. Like SpaceX, Blue Origin also wants to recover, refurbish and reuse the first stage boosters to reduce costs. New Glenn’s success is essential to Blue Origin’s most ambitious goals. One day, this rocket will send Amazon Internet satellites into space, even contributing to the construction of the space station that Blue Origin is developing with several commercial partners.

Blue Origin announced the development of New Glenn to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and carry up to 45 tons of cargo into orbit in 2016. The vehicle developed slowly compared to schedule because the company previously scheduled the first launch. start in 2020. However, delays are common in the aerospace industry. The first flight of a new vehicle is almost always much later than scheduled.

Rocket companies also take a conservative approach to initial liftoff, launching fake payloads like metal objects, such as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket flown in 2018 with an old sports car. Blue Origin also develops rockets slowly and slowly, without “taking any shortcuts,” according to Bezos, founder of Blue Origin.

Blue Origin is primarily known for its space tourism, carrying paying customers and celebrities on its New Shepard, a suborbital rocket much smaller than the New Glenn, not powerful enough to launch satellites into space. time. Of the more than 20 flights that New Shepard has made to date, the vehicle has failed on an unmanned science mission.

For years, Blue Origin has touted New Glenn as a rocket capable of competing with both SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The US Space Force selected Blue Origin, ULA and SpaceX last June to compete for a $5.6 billion contract for national security launch missions, expected to take place over the next four years. .

The New Glenn missile is very powerful. As a heavy-lift launch vehicle, its capabilities fall between SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. For example, the Falcon 9 transport rocket can carry 22.8 tons of cargo into space. While New Glenn can carry twice that, it costs about the same as the Falcon 9, about $60-70 million per launch.

One feature that makes New Glenn stand out is its cargo cover, also known as the large conical tip. The rocket’s cargo compartment protection is 7 m wide, nearly 2 m larger than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy. Jezos has long revealed its desire to move polluting manufacturing industries off the Earth. To do that, he needed rockets that could carry huge objects.

Blue Origin had planned to launch two Mars satellites for NASA during the first flight of New Glenn. But delays in development forced NASA to change its plans. Therefore, in the upcoming flight, Blue Origin decided to launch a test device to test the technology needed for the company’s Blue Ring spacecraft, which serves as a shared vehicle in space, towing satellites. Ejaculate higher when needed. The device will stay on the rocket throughout the six-hour flight and test communications from orbit to the ground. After using most of the fuel to propel the first stage of the rocket into space, the first stage booster will need to separate neatly, then restart the engine for precise timing to avoid crashing. sea ​​and landed gently on the barge Jacklyn.

They’re Khang (Theo CNN)