Bezos’ rocket that stands up to Elon Musk and SpaceX* Jeff Bezos launches New Glenn and challenges SpaceX to conquer space

More than 45 minutes late and after a long break that caused the countdown to resume again, New Glenn, 82 meters high and 7 in diameter, was finally launched into Earth’s orbit on a journey without major surprises, although getting to this point was difficult. First, bad weather conditions and then the threat of a solar storm, combined with a government shutdown, which led to the suspension of commercial flights (Blue Origin had to deal with the temporary suspension of launches), turned the takeoff of the Bezos giant’s second flight into almost an ordeal.

However, it has achieved the biggest challenge: proving that it has a reusable prototype ready to go, transporting payloads of up to 45 tons up to (currently) 2,000 kilometers above our heads, and being the new competitor to the only SpaceX Falcons to date, which have revolutionized the space sector by cutting costs by using their functional launchers for more than one mission. However, this feat was not achieved on its debut last January, as it failed after breaking away, ending up lost in the Atlantic Ocean, despite planning to recover the first stage.

SpaceX’s biggest competitor

Blue Origin hopes to use New Glenn as a primary rocket for commercial satellite launches, heavy-lift flights, and future missions to the Moon with the Blue Moon lander — still under construction — with and without a crew on board; This is the same scheme followed by SpaceX, which addresses both space agencies and private parties. Moreover, the context is in its favor: this new achievement also occurs after the current head of NASA, also Senator Sean Duffy, said that he will inaugurate the contract agreed with SpaceX for the first missions to the Moon for the Artemis program (Bezos will do this as of the fifth mission, after two flights after the first landing on the Moon), which will put astronauts once again on our satellite.

Duffy said Musk’s company was “lagging behind” in testing Starship, SpaceX’s giant rocket. “They have extended their deadlines and we are in a race against China,” the current head of NASA said. He said at the time, “The president and I want to reach the moon during this term, so I will open the contract,” which led to tension in relations between the current head of the US Space Agency and Elon Musk, who did not even hesitate to exclude him on social media.

For its part, Blue Origin, although it has always sought to be more present in NASA missions, at the moment only has its New Shepard rocket, which it has used to transport experiments requiring microgravity to the Cartman Line (100 kilometers from the Earth’s surface) and tourist flights lasting only minutes in which Bezos himself or celebrities like Katy Perry or Jesús Calleja have participated. In parallel, after several years, it was working on developing New Glenn, capable of reaching low Earth orbit (altitude between 160 and 2000 km).

In addition, he has secured a contract with NASA for his Blue Moon rover to be the second lunar lander of the Artemis program’s fifth mission (the third and fourth would theoretically do so using a SpaceX module); However, perhaps this support and bad relations between the current NASA administrator and Musk can change the scenario.

The journey to Mars

Escapade is NASA’s first mission to Mars in more than five years, since the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter lifted off together in July 2020. The mission was scheduled to launch in October 2024 (months before New Glenn first lifted off), but the US space agency postponed the flight until spring 2025 to avoid potential cost overruns if it doesn’t launch on schedule.

“It’s been a long road, and I’m very grateful to all the partners who have worked so hard with us for so many years,” Robert Lillis, principal investigator of the Escapade program at the University of California, Berkeley Space Science Laboratory, who is overseeing NASA’s mission, said in a pre-launch press conference on Saturday.

In fact, Escapade will not depart directly for Mars, but New Glenn will leave its twin spacecraft, Blue (Blue) and Gold (Gold), the colors of the University of California, Berkeley, which will be operated (although the design, at a cost of less than $80 million, was carried out by Rocket Lab), at Lagrange Point Earth-Sun 2 (L2), a gravitationally stable point about 1.5 million kilometers from us where both spacecraft will still study the weather Alien.

Twelve months later, after orbiting Earth in November 2026, they will “propel” themselves into our gravity to head to Mars, where they will arrive ten months later. This complex path is necessary because of orbital dynamics: Earth and Mars align only once every 26 months for efficient interplanetary travel, and the next window will open in late 2026.

“We’re using a very flexible approach to mission design where we go into geostationary orbit to kind of wait until Earth and Mars are properly aligned in November of next year to go to Mars,” Lillis said.

After the two Escapade probes reach the Red Planet, they will spend about seven months descending into precisely aligned orbits, then collecting data for at least another eleven months. Specifically, the orbiters will fly in formation to map Mars’ magnetic fields, upper atmosphere and ionosphere in 3D, providing the first stereoscopic view of the Red Planet’s unique space environment, UC Berkeley wrote in a mission description. The university added: “What they discovered will help scientists understand how and when Mars lost its atmosphere and will provide basic information about conditions on the planet that could affect people who land or settle on Mars.”