Blue Origin successfully lands New Glenn Booster on second flight attempt

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully landed the booster of its New Glenn mega-rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean during only its second attempt, making it the second company to achieve this feat after Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

This milestone will enhance the new rocket’s capability to send larger payloads to space, the moon, and beyond. The launch wasn’t solely about the landing; about 34 minutes after launch, the upper stage deployed the first commercial payload—twin spacecraft for NASA destined for Mars to study the red planet’s atmosphere.

These two achievements are significant for the second-ever launch of such a massive rocket system and could position Blue Origin as a contender against SpaceX, which leads the launch market with its Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship rockets.

This breakthrough is important for the broader space industry. SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell praised the event on social media with just “Magnificent!” and Musk also congratulated Blue Origin shortly afterward.

New Glenn’s first launch was in January, and Blue Origin experienced several delays in getting the second rocket to launch. The company had expected to make a second go as early as the spring, but pushed it back numerous times. New Glenn finally reached the launch pad on Sunday, but weather and solar storms delayed its launch.

The New Glenn rocket successfully launched from Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday at approximately 3:55 p.m. ET. The flight proceeded as planned, with the second stage separating around four minutes into the flight to continue its journey into space.

Crucially, the New Glenn booster began its descent back toward Earth, successfully landing on the platform roughly 10 minutes after takeoff. This marked a major win for Blue Origin, as their first attempt in January to recover the booster on its initial flight failed when the booster was lost before reaching the drone ship.

Following that incident, Blue Origin collaborated with the Federal Aviation Administration to implement necessary fixes, which the company was confident would lead to a successful landing on this second attempt.

The ability to land a booster like this is a crucial step in making the rocket system reusable, which lowers the cost for customers—a capability that SpaceX has mastered. Blue Origin will now have to demonstrate the ability to refurbish the rocket booster and relaunch it.

These are essential capabilities for commercial customers and government missions. Blue Origin has had its sights set on the moon for years and is currently developing a lunar lander. So is SpaceX, with Starship. However, the government has asked them to expedite these programs, and acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy recently slammed SpaceX for moving too slowly.

Blue Origin’s CEO, Dave Limp, recently committed that the company “will move heaven and Earth” to accelerate NASA’s return to the moon. Achieving this, however, is dependent on the successful demonstration of all New Glenn’s capabilities.

Thursday’s launch marked a major step toward accomplishing this critical objective.