Blue Origin Livestreams What's Potentially Its First Orbital Rocket Launch (blueorigin.com) 10
Blue Origin is attempting its very first orbital flight tonight. And they'll also attempt to land their reusable Stage 1 on a drone in the Atlantic ocean.
The rocket is fueled on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting ignition. Its three-hour launch window has just opened. And Blue Origin is webcasting it all live on their web page...
But whatever happens tonight, Ars Technica's senior space editor Eric Berger got to talk to an "affable and anxious" Jeff Bezos: "It's pretty exciting, isn't it?" Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, said by way of greeting... I asked what his expectations were for the launch of New Glenn, which has a three-hour window that opens at 1 am ET (06:00 UTC) on Monday, January 13... "We would certainly like to achieve orbit, and get the Blue Ring Pathfinder into orbit," Bezos said. "Landing the booster would be gravy on top of that. It's kind of insane to try and land the booster. A more sane approach would probably be to try to land it into ocean. But we're gonna go for it."
Blue Origin has built a considerable amount of infrastructure on a drone ship, Jacklyn, that will be waiting offshore for the rocket to land upon. Was Bezos not concerned about putting that hardware at risk? "I'm worried about everything," he admitted. However, the rocket has been programmed to divert from the ship if the avionics on board the vehicle sense that anything is off-nominal. And there is, of course, a pretty good chance of that happening. "We've done a lot of work, we've done a lot of testing, but there are some things that can only be tested in flight," Bezos said. "And you can't be overconfident in these things... The reality is, there are a lot of things that go wrong, and you have to accept that, if something goes wrong, we'll pick ourselves up and get busy for the second flight."
Bezos also pointed out that 7% of all the people who have ever flown into space have done so on a Blue Origin vehicle — including himself, an experience he told Ars Technica "is kind of hard to beat... That really was very meaningful for a whole bunch of reasons.
"But this is, you know, the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people. And it's a really big deal. You know, you don't get very many first flights, yeah, and here we go."
The rocket's payload nose cone (or fairing) has the signatures of thousands of Blue Origin employees, according to a Blue Origin post on Instagram, calling it "a tribute to the hard work and passion for mission we all have here..." More details about the launch:
The rocket is fueled on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting ignition. Its three-hour launch window has just opened. And Blue Origin is webcasting it all live on their web page...
But whatever happens tonight, Ars Technica's senior space editor Eric Berger got to talk to an "affable and anxious" Jeff Bezos: "It's pretty exciting, isn't it?" Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, said by way of greeting... I asked what his expectations were for the launch of New Glenn, which has a three-hour window that opens at 1 am ET (06:00 UTC) on Monday, January 13... "We would certainly like to achieve orbit, and get the Blue Ring Pathfinder into orbit," Bezos said. "Landing the booster would be gravy on top of that. It's kind of insane to try and land the booster. A more sane approach would probably be to try to land it into ocean. But we're gonna go for it."
Blue Origin has built a considerable amount of infrastructure on a drone ship, Jacklyn, that will be waiting offshore for the rocket to land upon. Was Bezos not concerned about putting that hardware at risk? "I'm worried about everything," he admitted. However, the rocket has been programmed to divert from the ship if the avionics on board the vehicle sense that anything is off-nominal. And there is, of course, a pretty good chance of that happening. "We've done a lot of work, we've done a lot of testing, but there are some things that can only be tested in flight," Bezos said. "And you can't be overconfident in these things... The reality is, there are a lot of things that go wrong, and you have to accept that, if something goes wrong, we'll pick ourselves up and get busy for the second flight."
Bezos also pointed out that 7% of all the people who have ever flown into space have done so on a Blue Origin vehicle — including himself, an experience he told Ars Technica "is kind of hard to beat... That really was very meaningful for a whole bunch of reasons.
"But this is, you know, the culmination of a lot of hard work by a lot of people. And it's a really big deal. You know, you don't get very many first flights, yeah, and here we go."
The rocket's payload nose cone (or fairing) has the signatures of thousands of Blue Origin employees, according to a Blue Origin post on Instagram, calling it "a tribute to the hard work and passion for mission we all have here..." More details about the launch:
- Space.com notes that the launch "was initially scheduled for Jan. 10 and then Jan. 12, but Blue Origin postponed it due to rough offshore weather that could affect a rocket landing on the company's recovery ship in the Atlantic." Space Force officials forecast the chance of good liftoff conditions tonight are 50%.
- "We want to be clear about our objectives," Blue Origin posted tonight on X.com. "This is our first flight and we've prepared rigorously for it. But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations is a replacement for flying this rocket. Our key objective today is to reach orbit safely. Anything beyond that is icing on the cake. We know landing the booster on our first try offshore in the Atlantic is ambitious — but we're going for it. No matter what happens, we'll learn, refine, and apply that knowledge to our next launch."
- The rocket will be visible on the coasts of South Carolina and North Carolina, Blue Origin posted on X.com
- While Blue Origin's "New Shephard" capsule can hold up to six passengers, the New Glenn's capsule has 30 times that capacity.
- Space.com notes the rocket is carrying a payload: a test version of the company's new 'Blue Ring' spacecraft platform to validate its orbit-to-ground communications capabilities.
- To get the next generation excited about space travel, Blue Origin's web site is selling an 11.5-inch , 636-piece model of the New Glenn rocket (complete with a retractable launch tower).
First Link (Score:1)
Link to the live launch video is first link in the summary.
Not even sure if the livestream is on YouTube (livestream on Site doens't look like YouTube feed), but isn't it nice you don't have to go through Google to watch?
Really hope this goes well, we need more competent private space providers.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean, obviously we all hope it goes well, but I'm not expecting anything remotely economically competitive out of Blue Origin - just another "we'll keep giving you money, even though it makes no sense, so that we're not 100% contingent on SpaceX" launch provider (like ULA). In large part because:
Probably, but still hoping... (Score:1)
I mean, obviously we all hope it goes well, but I'm not expecting anything remotely economically competitive out of Blue Origin
Maybe not for a while but I am hoping that after some time they can at least catch up economically, and it can start with some good breaks in testing and design going well.
What they're doing is like trying to develop an operating system, without ever compiling and running it.
Yeah it's a leap, I just hope it actually works out for them even though the odds seem bad.
Re: (Score:3)
But that's my point: they stand zero chance of ever catching up economically unless they change their design philosophy. Regardless of how this particular launch goes. They're guaranteeing themselves far too low of a learning rate.
And I don't want it to sound like SpaceX is the only one iterating quickly, because they're not - they're just the furthest along. The point is just the opposite: that BlueOrigin isn't.
I don't think most people realize that BlueOrigin is older than SpaceX. And for most of its
Re: (Score:3)
SIGH....
Launch was just scrubbed. Figures.
Re: (Score:2)
Updates
All Times E.T.
2:10 A.M. – Scrub has been made official due to “launch system subsystem.” No new launch date was given.
2:04 A.M. – Unofficial reports of a scrub from local reporters.
2:03 A.M. – The launch clock has been removed from the stream maybe this is the end for the night?
==
With SpaceX, this would probably mean "launching tomorrow or the day after", but with BE, who knows... 2026? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
They have flown many of the component parts, and demonstrated things like landing boosters. This is just the first time for the whole stack.
There is some interesting tech there, as much as I hate to admit it.
Scrubbed now anyway.
Good Luck, Blue Origin (Score:2)
I hope you nail everything on the first try.
Scrubbed... (Score:2)
The launch was scrubbed for today's launch attempt. The countdown displayed on the live feed got down to about 15 minutes or so, and then it was scrubbed.