Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos almost 25 years ago, will launch the enormous New Glenn rocket for the first time this Monday morning. With the height of a 32-story building, it is the first orbital launch of the company, whose main service until now was 10-minute space tourism trips aboard the small New Shepard rocket, which fits entirely in the cowl of the New Glenn.
How to watch it live
The NG-1 mission will lift off from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch window is three hours and will begin on Monday, January 13 at 1:00 local time in Florida.
- Mexico City (UTC-6): January 13, 00:00
- Bogotá/Lima/Quito/Panama (UTC-5): January 13, 01:00
- Caracas/La Paz/Santo Domingo (UTC-4): January 13, 02:00
- Santiago/Buenos Aires/Montevideo/Asunción (UTC-3): January 13, 03:00
- Washington/Nueva York/Miami (UTC-5): January 13, 01:00
- Los Angeles (UTC-8): January 12, 10:00 p.m.
- Madrid (UTC+1): January 13, 07:00
Blue Origin will broadcast the launch from its YouTube channel, its website and its social profiles. It can also be seen live through the cameras of NASASpaceflight, Everyday Astronaut and Spaceflight Now.
The weather, especially in the area of the Atlantic Ocean where the rocket is scheduled to land, is currently the main concern for the launch, which has been delayed for this reason.
Flight profile of the New Glenn rocket mission NG-1
The New Glenn will debut after a long development with a test payload: the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a prototype of the Blue Ring platform designed by Blue Origin to transport satellites to different orbits once deployed by the rocket. This prototype will not be separated from the second stage of the New Glenn, which will reach an apogee of 19,300 kilometers.
NG-1 will also be the first certification flight that the New Glenn needs to launch National Security payloads, one of the most lucrative businesses in the US space industry. Its success would mark the beginning of more balanced competition against SpaceX and ULA.
Although the main objective is to reach orbit, as the CEO of Blue Origin recalled a few hours ago, the rocket will also try to land on the high seas on a ship called Jacklyn, in honor of Jeff Bezos’ mother. It will be a maneuver worth seeing, taking into account that the first stage of the New Glenn measures 57 meters and has to restart its engines for 38 seconds to land.
New Glenn, named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, is a fundamental pillar of Blue Origin’s space plans, which range from the deployment of a commercial space station and Kuiper satellites, to manned flights to the Moon with the Blue Moon ship.
The original article was updated with the new release date after a delay due to bad weather
Images | Blue Origin, Daniel Oberhaus
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