New Glenn: how to watch Blue Origin’s next big rocket launch

Blue Origin is preparing for 1 of its biggest launches yet. On Monday morning, the Jeff Bezos-owned commercialized abstraction institution volition effort to nonstop its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket into abstraction for the archetypal time.

The motorboat comes aft astir a decennary of development, and its result could endanger the dominance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX — not lone in the commercialized abstraction industry but besides successful the outer net business. Here’s an overview of what you request to cognize astir the New Glenn formation and however to ticker it live.

What is New Glenn, and wherefore is it important?

Its archetypal signifier is powered by 7 of Blue Origin’s almighty BE-4 engines, which tally connected liquified earthy state and liquid oxygen. Blue Origin aims to reuse New Glenn’s archetypal signifier for astatine slightest 25 missions, arsenic it’s designed to interaction down vertically connected a sea-based level pursuing launch, allowing the institution to retrieve it.

The rocket’s precocious signifier is disposable and carries Blue Origin’s payload. It’s susceptible of sending 13 metric tons to geostationary transportation orbit and 45 metric tons to debased Earth orbit. Blue Origin says New Glenn is besides “engineered with the information and redundance required to alert humans.” Though Blue Origin initially aimed to motorboat New Glenn successful 2020, its inaugural formation kept getting pushed back owed to issues with the development of its BE-4 engine and other method mishaps.

As pointed retired by NPR, New Glenn has a akin carrying capableness to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, but it stands retired with a larger, 23-foot-wide cargo bay. If New Glenn’s motorboat is successful, it could vigor up its rivalry with SpaceX arsenic some companies vie to unafraid lucrative authorities contracts.

What to expect from New Glenn’s archetypal launch

New Glenn is acceptable to instrumentality disconnected from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a three-hour motorboat model opening connected January 13th astatine 1AM ET (10PM PT). The motorboat was primitively scheduled for January 10th, but it was pushed backmost owed to “a precocious oversea authorities successful the Atlantic,” first to January 12th and then to January 13th arsenic the “still unfavorable” conditions continued.

During this uncrewed launch, New Glenn volition person the Blue Ring Pathfinder connected board, a payload consisting of a communications array, a powerfulness system, and a formation computer. It volition trial the company’s Blue Ring spacecraft, which volition assistance enactment missions with refueling, hosting, information relay, and unreality computing capabilities. The extremity is for New Glenn to scope orbit, portion “anything beyond that,” similar landing its reusable booster, is simply a “bonus,” according to Blue Origin CEO David Limp.

“This is our archetypal formation and we’ve prepared rigorously for it,” Jarrett Jones, the elder vice president of New Glenn, said successful a statement. “But nary magnitude of crushed investigating oregon ngo simulations are a replacement for flying this rocket. It’s clip to fly. No substance what happens, we’ll learn, refine, and use that cognition to our adjacent launch.”

How to ticker New Glenn’s motorboat live

Blue Origin volition livestream the motorboat from its website, its X account, and its YouTube channel. The YouTube watercourse is embedded astatine the apical of this article.

Update January 11th: Updated to bespeak the most caller delay to January 13th astatine 1AM ET.

Update January 12th: Added a nexus to the livestream.