New Glenn

Blue Origin began developing systems for orbital human spacecraft prior to 2012. A reusable first-stage booster was projected to fly a suborbital trajectory, taking off vertically like the booster stage of a conventional multistage rocket. Following stage separation, the upper stage would continue to propel astronauts to orbit while the first-stage booster would descend to perform a powered vertical landing similar to its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. The first-stage booster was to be refueled and relaunched to reduce costs of access for humans to space.[7]

The booster rocket was projected to lift Blue Origin's biconic Space Vehicle capsule to orbit, carrying astronauts and supplies. After completing its mission in orbit, the Space Vehicle was designed to reenter Earth's atmosphere and land under parachutes on land, to be reused on future missions.[7]

Engine testing for the (then named) Reusable Booster System (RBS) launch vehicle began in 2012. A full-power test of the thrust chamber for Blue Origin BE-3 liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen upper-stage rocket engine (BE-3U) was conducted at a NASA test facility in October 2012. The chamber successfully achieved full thrust of 100,000 pounds-force(about 440 kN).[10] By early 2018,[11] it was announced that the BE-3U hydrolox engine would power the second stage of the New Glenn.[12]

Design work on the vehicle began in 2012, with the beginning of BE-4 engine development. Further plans for an orbital launch vehicle were made public in 2015. By March 2016, the rocket was referred to by the placeholder name of "Very Big Brother".[13][6] It was stated to be a two-stage-to-orbit liquid-propellant rocket,[8] with the launcher intended to be reusable.[14] In early 2016, Blue Origin indicated that the first orbital launch was expected no earlier than 2020 from the Florida launch facility,[6] and in September 2017 continued to forecast a 2020 debut.[15]

The vehicle itself, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. New Glenn was described as a 7-meter-diameter (23 ft), two- or three-stage rocket, with the first and second stages being liquid methane/liquid oxygen (methalox) designs using Blue Origin engines. The first stage is reusable and will land vertically, just like the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it. Although these plans would subsequently change, the 2016 plans called for the first stage to be powered by seven of Blue Origin's BE-4 single-shaft oxygen-rich staged combustion[16] liquid methane/liquid oxygen rocket engines, the second-stage to be powered by a single vacuum-variant of the BE-4 (BE-4U) and the third stage to use a single BE-3 hydrolox engine.[5] Blue Origin announced that they intended to launch the rocket from Launch Complex 36, and manufacture the rockets at a new facility being built after 2015 on nearby land in Exploration Park. Acceptance testing of the BE-4 engines was also announced to be planned for Florida.[14]

Blue explained in the 12 September 2016 announcement that the rocket would be named New Glenn in honor of the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, John Glenn.[5][17] Three weeks of wind tunnel testing of a scale model New Glenn were completed in September 2016 in order to validate the CFD design models of transonic and supersonic flight.[18][19]

In March 2017, Jeff Bezos showed graphics of the New Glenn which had two large strakes at the bottom of the booster.[20] In the September 2017 announcement, Blue announced a much larger payload fairing for New Glenn, this one 7 meters (23 ft) in diameter, up from 5.4 meters (18 ft) in the originally announced design.[15]

By March 2018 the launch vehicle design had changed. It was announced that the New Glenn second stage will now be powered by two vacuum versions of the flight proven BE-3 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine (BE-3U) with a single BE-3U engine for the third stage deep space option. The three stage booster variant was later cancelled in January 2019.[21] By mid-2018, the low-level design was not yet complete and the likelihood of achieving an initial launch by 2020 was being called into question by company engineers, customers, industry experts, and journalists.[22][23]

In October 2018, the Air Force announced Blue Origin was awarded $500 million for development of New Glenn as a potential competitor in future contracts, including Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Phase 2.[24] By February 2019, multiple launches for New Glenn had been contracted: five for OneWeb, an unspecified amount of Telesat, one each for Eutelsat, mu Space Corp and SKY Perfect JSAT.[25][26][15][27][12]

In February 2019, Blue indicated that no plans to build a reusable second stage are even on the company's roadmap.[28]

By December 2020, Blue indicated that the engine delivery to ULA would slip to summer 2021, and ULA disclosed that the first launch of the New Glenn competitor ULA Vulcan would now be no earlier than 4Q2021.[29][29]

By 2018, Blue Origin had contracts in place with four customers for New Glenn flights. Eutelsat, Thailand startup mu Space Corp and SKY Perfect JSAT have geosynchronous orbit commsat launches planned after 2020, while internet satellite constellation fleet operator OneWeb has an agreement for five launches.[26][27][38]

In January 2019, Telesat signed a multi-launch contract "to launch satellites for its future low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation on multiple New Glenn missions" and thus is Blue's fifth customer.[39]

Blue intends to contract for launch services a bit differently than contract options that have been traditionally offered in the commercial launch market. The company has stated they will contract to aim to have a regular launch cadence of up to eight times a year. If one of the payload providers for a multi-payload launch is not ready on time, Blue will hold to the launch timeframe, and fly the remaining payloads on time at no increase in price.[37]

This is different from how dual-launch manifested contracts have been traditionally handled by Arianespace (Ariane 5 and Ariane 6) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (H-IIA and H3). SpaceX and International Launch Services can offer dual-launch contracts, but prefer dedicated missions.[37]