New Glenn Rocket launch challenges Elon Musk’s space dominance

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s area firm has blasted its first rocket into orbit in a bid to problem the dominance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The New Glenn rocket launched from Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Florida at 02:02 native time (07:02 GMT).

It firmly pits the world’s two richest males in opposition to one another in a business area race, vying to fly larger and extra highly effective rockets.

Each wish to populate the skies with extra satellites, run non-public area stations, and supply transport for normal journeys by folks to the Moon.

Bezos’s crew overcame technical boundaries that induced delays earlier this week when ice formation halted a launch.

Blue Origin’s workers and crowds gathered close to Cape Canaveral cheered because the 98 meters-high rocket hurtled into orbit.

However the firm did not land New Glenn’s most important rocket engine, or booster, onto a platform within the Atlantic Ocean.

It had hoped that the booster can be reusable for future launches however after about 20 minutes of flight, the corporate confirmed it had misplaced the engine.

Bezos’s firm Blue Origin has struggled to match the tempo set by SpaceX. However this launch can be seen as a significant step ahead for the enterprise.

The New Glenn rocket was named after John Glenn, the primary American astronaut to orbit Earth greater than 60 years in the past.

The rocket is extra highly effective than SpaceX’s most commonly-used rocket, the Falcon 9. It may well additionally carry extra satellites, and Bezos desires to make use of it as a part of his Challenge Kuiper, which goals to deploy hundreds of low-earth satellites to supply broadband companies.

That venture would compete instantly with Musk’s Starlink service.

Jeff Bezos based Blue Origin 25 years in the past, claiming he wished “tens of millions of individuals working and dwelling in area.”

For years the enterprise has despatched a smaller, resuable rocket known as New Shepard to the sting of Earth’s ambiance. It has carried passangers and payloads, together with Bezos himself in 2021.

However Blue Origin has been dramatically outperformed by SpaceX, which launched its rockets 134 occasions final 12 months.

And SpaceX’s new era of rocket, known as Starship, is extra highly effective nonetheless. The corporate hopes to launch it in its seventh check flight later immediately.

Some specialists say a profitable New Glenn rocket will create actual competitors between the 2 corporations and will drive down the prices of area operations.

“What you’re going to see are these two corporations problem one another to make even higher strides,” suggests Dr Simeon Barber on the Open College within the UK.

Governments have traditionally spent billions on constructing rockets and sending missions into area.

However US area company NASA is more and more transferring away from relying solely on public cash and has issued large contracts to non-public corporations to supply rockets and different area companies.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already obtained billions of {dollars} value of area contracts.

His shut relationship with the following US president, Donald Trump, might strengthen his firm additional.