New Glenn - First Flight and Beyond

Video from the channel Eager Space about New Glenn, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 22:41. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Explanatory analysis published after the first flight of New Glenn, Blue Origin's heavy-lift launcher. Based on what was observed during that flight and an old user's guide for the rocket, the author builds a performance model to explain why the rocket lifted off so slowly, check whether it can meet its advertised payloads, and assess its commercial prospects.

The first flight was a success in its essentials: the booster performed normally, stage separation went correctly, and the second stage ignited and relit, as ULA's Vulcan did on its debut. The attempt to recover the first stage failed at the start of the re-entry burn. Blue Origin publishes little data, unlike SpaceX, which forces most figures to be estimated.

Over a lift-off run to about 380 feet, Falcon 9 takes about 9 seconds, Apollo 11's Saturn V about 10, and New Glenn about 14; Starship's flight 7 and the second Vulcan, about 9. At 7 m in diameter, with seven methane/liquid-oxygen BE-4 engines on the first stage and two hydrogen BE-3U engines on the second, the author estimates about 1,380 tonnes of propellant in the first stage and 240 in the second. With full tanks, the thrust-to-weight ratio would come out at 0.93, not enough to lift off, and more than a quarter of the propellant would be left over at stage separation. His hypothesis is that the rocket flies with a partial load, around 80%, and is oversized to take advantage of a future, more powerful version of the BE-4. His model supports 45 tonnes to low Earth orbit in reusable mode, about 15 to geostationary transfer orbit (Blue Origin states 13), 8 towards the Moon and 4 towards Mars.

On the economic side, he notes that cost per launch depends mainly on cadence. Blue Origin lowered its target from 12 flights in 2025 to 10, a figure the author considers unrealistic against the track records of Ariane 5, Vulcan, Electron and Falcon 9; he estimates about three flights that year, even more so after the investigation into the recovery failure. He concludes with doubts about the company's ability to compete on price with SpaceX and other launchers.