Blue Origin stuns with Mars launch

Blue Origin stuns with Mars launch | Daily Tribune

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully launched its New Glenn rocket with NASA twin spacecraft destined for Mars aboard, and in a breakthrough, nailed the landing of its booster.

The launch was stalled for days over weather both on Earth and in space, but it was worth the wait: In the rocket’s second-ever flight, Blue Origin managed to recover the booster for reuse.

Ecstatic cheers rang out at the launch site in Florida’s Cape Canaveral as the booster gracefully stuck its landing on a floating platform. Before Thursday, only Elon Musk’s SpaceX had managed such a maneuver with an orbital-class rocket.

Blue Origin’s accomplishment comes amid intensified rivalry between the two billionaire-owned private space companies, as NASA recently opened bids for its planned Moon mission.

“Damn that was exciting!” said Jared Isaacman — a Musk ally whom President Donald Trump recently nominated again to head NASA — on X, congratulating Blue Origin.

Several figures at SpaceX also praised their rivals, including Musk himself: “Congratulations @JeffBezos and the @BlueOrigin team!” he said on X.

The launch was repeatedly delayed — on Sunday over weather on Earth, and on Wednesday over weather in space.

The second postponement was over “highly elevated solar activity” that NASA feared could damage its spacecraft.

Multiple glitches caused further delays Thursday — hold-ups Blue Origin did not explain. But at 3:55 p.m. (2055 GMT), New Glenn finally blasted off.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket now has the task of sending NASA’s ESCAPADE twin spacecraft to Mars to study the planet’s climate history, with the eventual hope of supporting human exploration.

Applause erupted again as the spacecraft successfully deployed.

Joseph Westlake, a NASA heliophysicist, explained during Thursday’s webcast how the twin spacecraft named “Blue” and “Gold” will first find a “benign, safe parking orbit” to make “measurements about the space weather here on Earth.”

Once Earth and Mars reach the ideal alignment in fall 2026, the spacecraft will get a gravity boost and begin the journey to Mars, where they will arrive in 2027.

This type of launch could allow for more frequent missions outside the traditional Earth-Mars alignment window, which occurs about once every two years.

New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was also marked a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.