Blue Origin lands New Glenn rocket booster on second try

https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/13/blue-origin-lands-new-glenn-rocket-booster-on-second-try/

by perihelions • 8 months ago

445 239 8 months ago

Beautiful launch and landing.

I still can't stand the public relation heavy official stream... but even with all that static the rocket itself cut through.

computerdork24• 8 months ago

agreed, they need to pick more engineer focused people who love building rockets rather than impersonal PR people. Sometimes, the broadcast felt like a standard business seminar.

d_silin• 8 months ago

Competition is good. SpaceX is de-facto Amazon of space logistics.

computerdork24• 8 months ago

agreed, new glenn will only make the space industry as a whole better

le-mark• 8 months ago

We are witnessing the birth of the age of Rocket Tycoons. Who will be the first to publish this video game?

gs17• 8 months ago

There's a game called "EarthX" which is basically that. It's more "SpaceX Tycoon" than rockets in general, but it's similar.

bell-cot2• 8 months ago

Landing (the booster) on their second launch is nice...but I'm more impressed by them being (probably...) 2-for-2 on their very first couple orbital launch attempts.

(Yes, SpaceX's Falcon reached that milestone back in 2010.)

computerdork24• 8 months ago

Was thinking about that. It is interesting how they got so much working in just two launches compared to SpaceX, which works so incrementally.

Still, am wondering though if SpaceX's highly iterative approach is a better way, because with Blue Origin's more standard approach of getting everything right the first time, you may need to over engineer everything, which seems like it may take longer.

On the flipside, SpaceX's approach might tax the engineers, because they have to deal with launching so often, and maybe if they had done less launches, they might have actually gotten falcon and starship out quicker...

...But, then again maybe at Spacex, the "launch" engineers are really the ones that have to deal with getting the rockets ready for launch, while the core design engineers can focus on building the latest version. And all the launches are used to test out different ideas and gather real life data). Hmm, for my part, am leaning towards the spacex way of doing things.

(maybe SpaceX and Blue Origin engineers could share their thoughts if they're reading this??)

jcims• 8 months ago

I think the key difference, to some approximation, is that Blue Origin is designing a rocket while SpaceX is designing a rocket factory.

the_duke• 8 months ago

A lot of SpaceX employees went over to Blue Origin over the years, so there also was a lot of knowledge transfer and Blue could capitalize on the iterations of SpaceX.

ortusdux• 8 months ago

Anyone know more about the explosive landing feet anchors at T+9:55?

stingrae2• 8 months ago

Potentially welding the feet to the deck detailed in this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240124165A1/en

ChuckMcM3• 8 months ago

Congrats to the Blue Origin team! That's a heck of a milestone (landing it on the second attempt). It will compete more with Falcon Heavy than Starship[1] but it certainly could handle all of the current GEO satellite designs. I'm sure that the NRO will appreciate the larger payload volume as well. Really super glad to see they have hardware that has successfully done all the things. The first step to making it as reliable as other launch platforms. And having a choice for launch services is always a good thing for people buying said launch services.

Notably, from a US policy standpoint, if they successfully become 'lift capability #2' then it's going to be difficult to ULA to continue on.

[1] Although if Starship's lift capacity keeps getting knocked back that might change.

stingrae2• 8 months ago

Doesn't ULA use Blue Origin's rocket engines?

JumpCrisscross2• 8 months ago

Yes, for Vulcan [1].

[1] https://spacenews.com/evolution-of-a-plan-ula-execs-spell-ou...

irjustin• 8 months ago

Yes, which makes it even harder for ULA to compete.

GMoromisato4• 8 months ago

I agree on ULA. It will be hard for them to compete on price. And if the US military has two reliable launch-providers, there won't be room for a third heavy-lift vehicle.

But it will probably take a while for the "steamroller" to get going. For the next year or two it will seem to ULA as if everything is fine. And then they'll get flattened.

originate9• 8 months ago

Amazon and SpaceX--now the two biggest defense contractors... Silicon Valley is sure returning to its military roots.

exomonk3• 8 months ago

            New Glenn   Falcon 9
    Height  96m         70m
    Payload 45 tons     22.8 tons
    Fairing 7m          5m

New Glenn significantly increases the capacity to Low Earth Orbit, which is what this first phase of the space race has always been about (for Golden Dome, and to a lesser extent commercial internet constellations). All eyes on Starship now.

wat100005• 8 months ago

Falcon Heavy does up to ~64 tons to LEO and has been available for a while. New Glenn isn't bringing any new capabilities to the table. It is still a very welcome alternative.

terminalshort• 8 months ago

Starship's lift capacity keeps getting knocked back that might change

What do you mean here? I was under the impression that it was increasing each new version. Is that incorrect?

wffurr• 8 months ago

The heat shield is rumored to be much heavier than was originally planned.

I read that buried in the middle of an article on moon landing mission architecture: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/11/what-would-a-simplifie...

dgrin912• 8 months ago

Starship v3 is slightly smaller than previous versions (not much).

ChuckMcM3• 8 months ago

The "production" lift capacity included some assumptions apparently about how much they could get out of Raptor and what they expected the assembly to weigh. Engineering constraints requiring more structure, the heat shield being inadequate, and the inability to raise the chamber pressure on Raptor to get the promised ISP have all impacted what the "expected" lift to LEO/GEO will actually be. Don't misunderstand, I am impressed as heck with SpaceX's engineering team and they are definitely getting closer to the point where they will have the design space fully mapped out and can make better estimates. The NASA documents are a better source of news on how Starship is going (as it's slated to be part of the Artemis program) than SpaceX marketing (one is engineering based, one is sales based). AND New Glenn isn't "fully" re-usable, its another 'upper stage gets consumed' platform (like Falcon). That is definitely an advantage with Starship if they make that work. For history, the shuttle has a similar history of shooting high and then finding that the engineering doesn't work.

cubefox7• 8 months ago

The first version was supposed to launch 150 tons to LEO. In reality it was something like 15 tons. Even the new V3 (significantly taller) only aims for 100 tons, and whether they achieve it is still an open question.

Zigurd• 8 months ago

Falcon Heavy has been successfully flown 11 times. Falcon Heavy can lift 67 tons to orbit. Starship has only lifted a fraction of that. SpaceX claims the price per kilogram to orbit for Falcon Heavy is even less than Falcon 9.

Every attempt at building products that are better faster cheaper more capable than your own existing successful products is extremely difficult.

Rover2226• 8 months ago

Insane that it took a decade for another company to do it, but better late than never. Great to see. Next up: China.

perihelions2• 8 months ago

The Zhuque-3 attempt should be a few weeks away,

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/... ("China's 1st reusable rocket test fires engines ahead of debut flight")

Rover2226• 8 months ago

I bet the next 5 companies/entities that do it are Chinese.

cubefox7• 8 months ago

LandSpace, the company behind Zhuque-3, might be the most advanced Chinese rocket startup.

They said they are even designing a larger rocket with 10m diameter, which is more than Starship (9m). My question is though where they are planning to get the required money from. Unlike the organization behind the Changzheng ("long march") rockets, which is already developing a 10m rocket as well, LandSpace is not state funded. And they don't have a billionaire at the top like Blue Origin and SpaceX.

On the other hand, they were only founded in 2015, and it's impressive what they have achieved since then, no doubt with quite limited funds. They also have some experience with designing methane engines.

throwaway1324483• 8 months ago

Maybe it tells you a lot about the real commercial demand for this.

Rover2226• 8 months ago

SpaceX launches 90% of the payload of the entire world to orbit now.

LightBug12• 8 months ago

Competition is good. We desperately needed competition or, at the very least, a viable strategic alternative to the WankerX - and now we have one.

Yes, China. But would also love to see Honda step it up a bit for Japan. (NSX edition!)

NetMageSCW3• 8 months ago

A bit early to say that given BO has had two launches 11 months apart and SpaceX has had 142 launches and landings in the same timeframe. With most of them in reused boosters.

h1fra• 8 months ago

I wish EU was next but we slept too much on this one

speed_spread2• 8 months ago

Mbah, just copy China's rockets once they stop exploding. It would be embarrassing for them to complain about a little industrial espionnage.

kypro• 8 months ago

this one

Heh. I like your optimism.

GMoromisato4• 8 months ago

This is truly sad. Despite having, collectively, a larger GDP than the US, Europe has not been at the forefront of too many technologies, compared to the US and China. [Pharmaceuticals might be the main exception.]

Sadly, I think the disadvantages will compound. Europe doesn't have a Google-type company with expertise building data centers, and are now behind on AI scaling. Without cheap access to orbit, they have missed out on building Starlink-like LEO constellations.

I wish I knew why this is and how to fix it.

bluGill2• 8 months ago

It isn't a race. EU can't do everything and so it is best to see what several others are doing and take that as a sign to do something different. If only one party (or only your enemies) then yes you should, but it seems there are plenty of players and the EU is smart to sit it out.

GuB-422• 8 months ago

I think the EU dropped the ball on reusability. But Ariane 5 was an excellent expendable heavy-lift launcher and Ariane 6 follows on the same track.

Not great for mass commercial launches, but good enough for sovereignty and science missions. Why compete with SpaceX? They can already provide more than what the market demands, so much that they have to create their own demand in the form of Starlink.

Europe could join the space race but it is an extremely expensive endeavor and the EU has other priorities. Now the question is which ones. As a French, I am all for nuclear technology, for which France was at the forefront and it seems to get back some traction after decades of neglect.

sanmon3186• 8 months ago

Rocket Labs https://www.space.com/space-exploration/rocket-lab-delays-de...

Rover2226• 8 months ago

Will be great if they're next

mannyv• 8 months ago

Go Limp Go!

For all the engineers that say management doesn't matter, I give you David Limp.

Management doesn't matter until it does.

pinkmuffinere• 8 months ago

I worked under Dave Limp for multiple years in Amazon's Consumer Devices group (like way under, I think he was my manager's skip manager?). I like him personally. But:

(1) His management in the Consumer Devices group did not lead to success, I feel we (and especially the consumer robotics group) basically floundered for 7 years :(

(2) He only left Devices to join Blue Origin like 2 years ago. 2 years is a decent length of time, but far too short for us to credit this success to him -- there have been many other forces building Blue Origin to what it is today. Maybe he gets 30% credit?

p.s. no offense to Mr. Limp, I must emphasize that he was a kind, polite, caring person, and certainly had the capacity for great decisions. It is unfortunate that Consumer Devices and CoRo hasn't had great success, and success may yet be just around the corner.

WJW• 8 months ago

What makes you believe it was his management specifically instead of other factors? AFAICT he has been at Blue Origin for only a few years, so the root of their success may have been laid much earlier and they succeeded either because or despite his influence.

Not saying he's a bad manager, just that the fact this one launch was a success is not proof of his skills. Luck is definitely still a possibility. And as a sibling comment mentions, it's not like he has a flawless track record.

dotnet004• 8 months ago

He was brought in to fix Blue's culture and try to speed things up, since the former Honeywell guy was taking forever to do anything.

I think it can be safely argued that since the fixes between attempt 1 and 2 happened entirely under him and faster than we're used to seeing from BO, he may have played a role.

imtringued3• 8 months ago

It's more like Bob Smith was extraordinarily bad and David Limp is a reversion to the mean.

ricardobeat• 8 months ago

Full launch video and images of the landing: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/...

niwtsol• 8 months ago

Video of the launch if anyone was looking for it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iheyXgtG7EI&t=14220s

consumer4512• 8 months ago

There is a lot to talk about here. However, the bolts that fired from the landing legs into the ship's deck were really neat. [0]

It was likely one of the simplest things involved, but SpaceX never did this. It seems far simpler than SpaceX's OctaGrabber. I think you can buy something similar at Home Depot? (edit: I just meant the explosive nail gun)

[0] https://www.youtube.com/live/iheyXgtG7EI?si=zXnZ_lMAEoWjzpzg...

xconverge• 8 months ago

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240124165A1/en

m4rtink2• 8 months ago

Blue also has a cute little elephant robot that shows up later in the stream. :)

BTW, while the pyrotechnic welding bolts are kinda neat, I do hope they come up with something else (electromagnets ?) eventually as it could be quite a hassle tneeding to cut the booster from the deck every time you land. :)

codeulike• 8 months ago

The weight of the landing legs is what made spacex go for the grab-tower

generuso• 8 months ago

One of their patents describes exactly that -- driving a hardened stud into the softer metal of the deck, essentially by using a gunpowder actuated nail gun:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240092508A1/en

They have also included a way to disconnect the stud from the leg afterwards, such that the deck can be tidied up conveniently after the rocket had been removed. This is a neat idea -- the damage to the deck should very localized, and the rocket gets secured quickly and without putting human welders at risk.

fransje26• 8 months ago

Oh, finally a video without the screeching in the background. Many thanks!

Does anybody know if there is also a video with only the engineering live audio?

syncsynchalt2• 8 months ago

Over eleven years after Blue Origin patented landing a rocket on a barge, and nearly ten years after SpaceX's first "ASDS" (barge) landing, Blue Origin has finally successfully landed a rocket on a barge.

We should be impressed they did it before their patent expired.

computerdork24• 8 months ago

although, they were doing it with a more complicated vehicle than the falcon 9, so the delay is "somewhat" understandable.

And only "somewhat," because new glenn seemed to take forever compared to starship. It does go to show, maybe the highly iterative approach that spacex takes really is faster (or, it could just be spacex has more highly skilled engineers, but I for one can't tell what the reasons are).

syncsynchalt2• 8 months ago

It's not about the delay, they can take as long as they want to build what they want to build. I object to their attempt to use patents to block competitors for decades when they didn't even have a product yet.

Fortunately it was challenged and the USPTO invalidated patent 8,678,321: https://cdn.geekwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2015-08-...

imglorp• 8 months ago

I wonder if they are comparable.

Spacex tends to "build rocket factories" instead of building one rocket. So they can launch and reuse hundreds a year. They're repeating this with starship.

It's hard to know what BO is doing because they're so quiet all the time, but to what degree is this scaling true for them also?

adastra223• 8 months ago

Blue Origin has seen significant internal and cultural restructuring. That’s why we are finally seeing progress.

manquer6• 8 months ago

Iterations are faster than modelling, no different for software where testing in prod with actual users ends up being quicker than in a testing environment.

Iterations in hardware businesses are far more expensive, particularly for early stage (by revenue not age) companies like Blue Origin. Outside of the Vulcan engine sales, joy rides and NASA grants they don't have much inflow and depend on equity infusion.

SpaceX also would find it tough without Starlink revenue to fund iterations for Starship. Similarly the early customer revenue ( plus the generous NASA grants) contributed to iterate on F9 be it Block V or for landing etc.

Beyond money, it also requires the ability to convince customers to be okay with the trade-offs and risks of constantly changing configurations, designs.

It is not that people do not know iterative testing with real artifacts is quicker, but most are limited in their ability to fund it or cannot convince customers, regulators to allow them.

jojobas5• 8 months ago

The jury is still out on Starship, it has all chances take even more time from development start to orbit.

ubercore2• 8 months ago

Hard to draw super hard conclusions. Could also be that the bets made on Falcon turned out to be particularly good, vs a more methodical approach Blue Origin took. The highly iterative approach _may_ be faster, but I don't see any evidence yet that it will _always_ be faster. Just depends on how good your bets are and how much in-flight testing you happen to have to do based on a design.

Would be interesting to see more detailed information like specific engineering issues being resolved one way vs another.

Falcon beat New Glenn to the punch, but New Glenn is probably more capable overall, so it's not an apples to oranges comparison. Completion of Starship would really help the iterative approach case though (ignoring the junk it leaves scatter around the world when it goes boom)

Stevvo2• 8 months ago

Ten years ago SpaceX claimed they would send a rocket off to mars in 2022. They have not yet. Blue origin just did.

emusan• 8 months ago

Blue Origin has not sent a rocket to mars in the sense that SpaceX wishes to send Starships to mars. They have sent a probe. SpaceX has launched probes to far further celestial bodies than Mars.

wat100005• 8 months ago

Blue Origin just sent a rocket to low Earth orbit. Its payload, owned and operated by NASA, will be going to Mars.

brucehoult4• 8 months ago

Blue Origin just launched two 550kg probes to Mars (1.5 AU from the Sun).

SpaceX sent a similar mass Tesla Roadster on a Mars-crossing trajectory in 2018, Psyche to an asteroid at around 3 AU in 2023, and Europa Clipper to Jupiter/Europa (5.2 AU) in 2024.

pipsterwo• 8 months ago

Did anyone else notice the pyrotechnics in the landing feet after touchdown? I'm going to assume that they harpooned the deck surface to secure the booster.

Im pretty impressed at how simple that idea is compared to SpaceX's solution which is to have a robot drive underneath and grab the booster

computerdork24• 8 months ago

Interesting, did see a couple of small pops after landing on the drone ship, was that them?

NetMageSCW3• 8 months ago

Welding isn’t great for reuse. SpaceX experimented with it early on.

7e2• 8 months ago

Blue Origin beats SpaceX to Mars.

brucehoult4• 8 months ago

Blue Origin just launched two 550kg probes to Mars (1.5 AU from the Sun).

SpaceX sent a similar mass Tesla Roadster on a Mars-crossing trajectory in 2018, Psyche to an asteroid at around 3 AU in 2023, and Europa Clipper to Jupiter/Europa (5.2 AU) in 2024.

roman_soldier4• 8 months ago

Congrats but it's kinda like a company, releasing in 2030, an LLM equivalent to the first version of chatGPT. SpaceX did this 10 years ago.

ceejayoz3• 8 months ago

Or like Apple releasing an MP3 player?

roman_soldier4• 8 months ago

I think this is more like the Fire phone vs the iPhone.

brucehoult4• 8 months ago

No wireless? Less space than a Nomad? Lame.

That aged well. Six years later it turned into the iPhone.

javascriptfan69• 8 months ago

And NASA put a man on the moon in the 60s.

What is your point?

roman_soldier4• 8 months ago

NASA never created rapidly reusable rockets, which is what we are talking about here.

yubblegum2• 8 months ago

I was just admiring the beautiful design of this rocket. This looks like something Apple/Jobs would send to space. It's quite an elegant machine.

adastra223• 8 months ago

It looks like a giant…

yubblegum2• 8 months ago

Rockets as Rorschach tests...

jpkw• 8 months ago

Dick, take a look out of starboard. Oh my god, it looks like a huge...

Stevvo2• 8 months ago

Headline misses that this is a mars mission, on its way to the red planet. Awesome achievement.

lateforwork2• 8 months ago

Same accomplishment as SpaceX but with a lot less hullabaloo. This is Jeff Bezos's style.

ACCount372• 8 months ago

It is a decade late. By now, SpaceX's own landings are totally routine and happen once a week, and even Starship got first stage reusability.

Still, good to see that someone other than SpaceX is serious about reusability and capable of pulling off a landing. The performance of "old space" has been nothing short of embarrassing. I'm no fan of Blue Origin, but the teams there pulled off one of the hardest feats in all of spaceflight.

jryle70• 8 months ago

By now, SpaceX's own landings are totally routine and happen once a week

Three times a week. They may have two launches at the same times today, from West and East coast.

lateforwork2• 8 months ago

It is a decade late.

Who did it first doesn't matter. What matters is who can do it the cheapest. Blue Origin has now destroyed SpaceX's cost advantage. That's good for humanity because you don't want a megalomaniac like Elon Musk to be the only one launching satellites and the only with a satellite internet service.

BoxedEmpathy• 8 months ago

Fantastic news! I hope to live long enough to see LEO become more accessible to everybody.

varenc• 8 months ago

I struggled to find a good video of the landing. This is a clip from their live stream: https://youtu.be/xHlPwTE-FOo

It seems like multiple video feeds glitch out right as it's about to land. There's even a black screen saying "buffering..." encoded into the video.

Still early days though, and I'm sure they're working to improve, but they're missing a huge opportunity here by not having high-quality footage like SpaceX. For comparison, here's a great clip of SpaceX's Starship landing: https://youtu.be/Hkq3F5SaunM

RattlesnakeJake• 8 months ago

SpaceX's landing footage has only been decent for the past few years. If I recall, they were able to fix it once Starlink reached a reasonable level of performance. Before that, their sea landings looked about the same as this BO one.

The cause seems to be the heat from the landing burn messing with normal wireless signals.

cubefox7• 8 months ago

The "buffering" message looks like they are using the wrong streaming technology though. They should use a fault tolerant real-time video codec, transmitted via UDP, which produces glitches during brief interruptions but not complete aborts with a "buffering" message.

daemonologist• 8 months ago

Yeah I haven't seen a really good/stable video of the landing; there's slightly better footage a bit later when they replay it though: https://www.youtube.com/live/ecfxcTEl-1I?si=V2kfTlvUA2PuZP39...

Back in the day SpaceX used to struggle with this during drone ship landings as well. All the vibration and heat and whatnot is rough on the transmission. Usually they'd upload better (stored) footage a couple days after the fact, and I'd expect something similar from Blue Origin.

Today's airborne tracking shot (from downrange) all the way from space to the clouds was amazing though. Never seen anything like that before.

eichin• 8 months ago

"on second try" sounds like the rocket did a go-around :-) (the current techcrunch title is "Blue Origin sticks first New Glenn rocket landing and launches NASA spacecraft" and doesn't mention the previous failure until the first paragraph.)

sidcool• 8 months ago

How big/small is it compared to Falcon 9?

ACCount372• 8 months ago

Much larger than Falcon 9. Comparable to Falcon Heavy, much smaller than Starship.

Blue Origin lands New Glenn rocket booster on second try

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