back to article Blue Origin reaches orbit with New Glenn, fumbles first-stage recovery

Jeff Bezos joined the orbital elite with the launch of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket this morning. The flight, dubbed NG-1, was beset by delays right up to the launch window opening at 0600 UTC on January 16, 2025. As it was, the T-0 time ended up being 0703 UTC, and the New Glenn rose from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral …

  1. FIA Silver badge

    Well done everyone.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "Well done everyone."

      Thank you. Thank you very much.

    2. anothercynic Silver badge

      A beer (or non-alcoholic bevvy) all round to the engineers and other support staff to make this happen. When the Muskrat congratulates Bezos, that's a pretty good achievement. :-)

  2. Swordfish1

    If I remember rightly, SpaceX had a few tries before they refined the issues - so yes New Glenn - great start, and good luck. It can only good that Musk and Bezos are investing and competing in the future with regards to space exploration and beyond. Shame Zuckerberg and the rest haven't got the same vision for the future for humanity.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Zuckerberg is only interested in his island retreat.

      As far as he's concerned, Humanity can die as long as his hidey-hole keeps him alive.

      I almost wish his dream comes true and he lives the rest of his life alone. But that wouldn't bother a Borg, now would it.

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
        Black Helicopters

        re: hidey-holes

        "As far as he's concerned, Humanity can die as long as his hidey-hole keeps him alive."

        The problem with that idea - hiding away on an Island - is the number of specialists needed to keep you going indefinitely. You need plumbers, electricians, engineers, medics (oncologist, dentists, physiotherapists, radiologists, NMR scanner people, surgeons of all types). Not to mention farmers, cooks, veterinarians, weavers, spinners, knitters, cobblers, carpenters, stonemasons, brewers, meteorologists, and administrators to manage everything, oh, and some way to stop whoever has the most guns from taking over and having it as their private feudal domain with you as their serf.

        All in all, I reckon the best way to survive the next few decades is to use what influence you have to prevent society collapsing in the first place. (Just my opinion, of course.)

        (Ironic / sarcastic icon.)

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: re: hidey-holes

          That's what makes the billionaire retreats/bunkers/etc. to survive if there are serious upheavals like a Black Death type pandemic, nuclear war, asteroid strike, AI uprising or whatever a complete folly. If you've surrounded yourself by men with guns to keep you safe, those men with guns will simply shoot you and take what you have if things take a really bad turn.

          Knowing that people like Zuck, Musk and Bezos would be among the first to take a bullet to the head would at least be a silver lining of some comfort if the world went to shit, especially if it went to shit because of something people like them did.

          1. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

            Re: re: hidey-holes

            I am reminded of the final paragaph of Edgar Allan Poe's Masque of the Red Death

            And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

        2. anothercynic Silver badge

          Re: re: hidey-holes

          Clearly no-one learns from the movies... sometimes those are far too prescient for words.

      2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        Until all the people with actual skills that he needs to keep him alive and his post-apocalyptic bunker operating decide they're better off without him...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Agreed that it's a great start technically but I'm not sure having competing private launchers is an efficient use of US government money. I'm sure there will be a swift examination of the justification and a recommendation on where to award future contracts by the relevant department.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        LOL. Do you remember the prices ULA charged BEFORE there were competing private launchers?

        SpaceX undercut them so hard they were forced to abandon the expensive Delta and develop Vulcan.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          The cheapest most reliable solution would obviously to have a government owned central design bureau make the rocket

          Can I suggest you call it something like "union", to symbolize everyone working together ?

          1. JRStern Bronze badge

            Single source is almost never optimal

            The cheapest most reliable solution would obviously to have a government owned central design bureau make the rocket

            Nope. A little competition keeps both sides sharp and honest.

            A little diversity works in R&D, too.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          That's exactly the sort of thing I'd expect the Dept. of Government Efficiency to point out, just before sending all future work SpaceX's way.

        3. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

          If I remember correctly ULA halved its launch costs twice in the face of competition from Falcon 9

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            >If I remember correctly ULA halved its launch costs twice in the face of competition from Falcon 9

            Wow, so Boeing+Lockheed completely redesigned their launcher overnight to be 50% cheaper to build and operate - twice !

  3. werdsmith Silver badge

    Anyone wanting to watch a replay of the stream don’t bother with BBC IPlayer. The IPlayer live feed superimposed a screen wide thick red strap line, helpfully informing us “Bezos’ Blue Origin Launch”, obscuring the live telemetry timeline.

    An impressive show from Blue Origin nonetheless, the shock patterns in the plumes from the 7 motors were very pretty.

    1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge

      Optional advice... YMMV

      Can I add that anyone wanting to watch a replay should also avoid the NSF coverage - their incessant wittering ("it's so blue, but it's blue, it's blue, look at that blue in the clouds....") drove me to watch the BO direct feed. Ah... the bliss of a working timeline, calm announcements and far fewer idiots.

      I get that a launch is exciting guys, but presenting the stream like its a Minecraft video1 (shouty, breathless and high pitched) and repeating your fanboi chants over the top of the official channel sound track isn't helpful.

      1Crotch goblins watch them, that's how I know.

      1. Flip
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: Optional advice... YMMV

        Upvoted for "crotch goblins". Made my morning!

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Optional advice... YMMV

          You can get an ointment for that.

          I'l get my coat, its the one with a prescription in the pocket.

      2. FIA Silver badge

        Re: Optional advice... YMMV

        "...drove me to watch the BO direct feed. Ah... the bliss of a working timeline, calm announcements and far fewer idiots."

        Even that was fairly... American.... I did enjoy that at one point a room full of presumably highly intelligent and accomplished professionals were reduced to a group chant of 'MECO MECO MECO'.

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Optional advice... YMMV

          "I did enjoy that at one point a room full of presumably highly intelligent and accomplished professionals were reduced to a group chant of 'MECO MECO MECO'."

          They were promised peanuts for doing that.

          Ook.

      3. tony72

        Re: Optional advice... YMMV

        I have to agree. I watch the NSF narrated Starbase updates, but I also find their live coverage irritating. I tend to watch the Spaceflight Now feed, if not the launch providers' own stream.

        1. beast666 Silver badge

          Re: Optional advice... YMMV

          Thankfully if you go to the audio options for the NSF Starbase update videos you can choose Klingon which turns off the awful narration entirely and leaves you with ambient sounds.

      4. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Optional advice... YMMV

        "drove me to watch the BO direct feed."

        The cheerleader commentary on the BO feed would be nice to delete. I'm a recovering rocket engineer so hearing the callouts from mission control is all I need.

      5. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

        Re: Optional advice... YMMV

        Indeed.

        I can do without the cheerleading and all the dude-bro high fiving.

        Okay, I'm old but, give me the late Christopher Kraft at Mission Control and Walter ("Iron Pants") Cronkite at the anchor desk any day of the week, just telling me what's happening any why, without the parade of white Teslas and self aggrandizement.

        Watching a JPL feed of a Mars landing can and will bring me to tears, watching true dedicated professionals doing their jobs as best they can for the love of the science.

        There's showing and then there's showing off. There's move fast and break things and then there's move carefully and do it well.

        Take your pick.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "the shock patterns in the plumes from the 7 motors were very pretty"

      When you see they are consistent, that's a good sign the engine is running well. If they waver or move up and down while at a constant throttle, that's a problem. As it was a night launch, we didn't get to see if the plume was clean. A CH4/Lox engine should produce a clean blue flame. If it has a slight smokey tail, that's a rich burn which might be normal since a perfectly stoichiometric or lean mix can melt the chamber.

  4. Mage Silver badge
    Alert

    Good & bad

    Great there is more competition.

    But using fuel & engines for recovery & reuse is a two-fold fail:

    1) Extra CO2, pollution etc

    2) Limits lift capacity.

    Some people have watched too many Thunderbirds episodes.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good & bad

      1) I'm sure the CO2 is more than offset by the emissions cause building a new rocket.

      2) Yes, but this thing has a pretty good capacity, even with booster re-use. I'm sure, for a price, they'll happily expend the landing fuel and lose the booster for a bit more mass to orbit. Just like SpaceX sometimes do.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Good & bad

      But using fuel & engines for recovery & reuse is a two-fold fail:

      Mage,

      It does take fuel to recover a used rocket. But I'm willing to bet that it takes a damned site more CO2 to build a whole rocket and set of engines than the small amount of extra fuel you're buring in order to get them back.

      Around 10 years ago Musk said it only took about $300,000 of fuel to get a Falcon 9 to orbit. That was at a time when a launch was costing about $60m and remember you're using less than 5% of the fuel to land the first stage - and the first stage probably only contains around half the total fuel. So you're using maybe $10-$15k of fuel in order to get tens of millions of dollars worth of rocket back.

      All of the raw materials in that rocket have had to be mined, moved, refined, moved, machined/forged/cast/some combination, moved around, added to other components shipped around a bit more - until the finally assembled compenents reach the rocket factory. There's an awful lot of exquisitely manufactured bits in them rockets - and they all have to be made on incredibly expensive machine tools - in factories using lots of electricity.

      For a quick example, I had a quick look online for the first decent looking analysis I could find. Ballpark accuracy being all I wanted. About 25% of an ICE car's CO2 emissions come just from building it. the rest from the fuel it burns + a bit from maintenance. And that's from a car driving every day for about 10-15 years. Admittedly a much larger percentage of a rocket is made up of fuel - but then they don't fly as often - and we're only using a few percent of that fuel to get the rest of it back for re-use.

      1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

        Re: another source with ball park accuracy

        Small launch can be bought for about $7.5M so the costs related to licensing, clearing the range and operating the rocket must be less. The base price of a Vulcan is $110M. The profit margin must be thin to compete against a Falcon 9 for $70M. According to Tory Bruno, a new rocket costs about $2B to develop including $1B for the engines. ULA buy in engines and US tax payers have generously contributed $1.2B leaving minus $200M R&D to be recovered over the life time of the rocket. Vulcan has a backlog of DoD payloads plus 38 Kuiper launches to do before August 2026. That should divide the overheads down to something reasonable. Falcon 9 fairings are about $6M each so budget about $12M for ULA dropping them in the sea. However you cut into that $110M with other expenses manufacturing will be the lions share and massively out-weigh propellant costs of well under $1M.

        For back of the envelope calculations the costs for bending metal correspond to the energy required to do it, which you could get by burning propellant. In real life US energy is only 83% fossil fuel so a small chunk of the manufacturing cost was not spent on dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

        1. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: another source with ball park accuracy

          "According to Tory Bruno, a new rocket costs about $2B to develop including $1B for the engines. "

          It's not a cheap industry and there has to be enough profit in what you are doing today to cover the ongoing updates and new vehicle development.

        2. rg287 Silver badge

          Re: another source with ball park accuracy

          According to Tory Bruno, a new rocket costs about $2B to develop including $1B for the engines.

          It costs ULA/Boeing $2B (and it apparently costs Blue Origin a hell of a lot more over the cost of 20 years, since they were founded before SpaceX).

          But SpaceX had Falcon 9 operational before they spent their billionth dollar. RocketLab were going to orbit (with a much smaller vehicle) for well under a billion.

          Tory Bruno is right about what the industry tends to spend - but this is not an immutable rule of thumb, and more reflective of the way that "old space" tends to do business (and BO seem to have been run in the old-space style).

          New Space of course is not easy, and not always the right path either (and you have to be willing to tolerate a bunch of explosions along the way). But it can offer significantly faster development and lower cost in the right circumstances.

      2. Mage Silver badge

        Re: Good & bad

        Rocket engines and fuel isn't the only way to ensure a 1st stage is recoverable and reusable.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Good & bad

          Suggestions? Including recovery of a SpaceX Starship booster and a New Glenn 1st stage please, not just small rockets.

    3. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Good & bad

      I reckon I’m safe in assuming that the minds behinds the engineering in these modern rockets have done a bit more careful thinking than watching Thunderbirds.

      Or did they perhaps make a grave error in not checking comments on The Register for advice before going ahead with their reuse strategy?

      1. David M
        Joke

        Re: Good & bad

        The technology has clearly moved on since Thunderbirds. Now you can barely see the strings at all.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Good & bad

          Well it's all done with CGI now

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Good & bad

        " a bit more careful thinking than watching Thunderbirds."

        a bit more careful thinking in addition to watching Thunderbirds.

        FTFY

    4. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Good & bad

      1) Not if you do the maths right.

      2) Not if they do the maths right.

      I mean, yes it limits lift capacity, but any rocket has a limited lift capacity, it's just that these rockets can potentially lift many more times that capacity over their lifetimes (the current F9 fleet leader is on 25 flights so far - that's 25 times 95% of the lift capacity, which is alot more than 1 shot of 100%)

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Good & bad

        "I mean, yes it limits lift capacity, but any rocket has a limited lift capacity, "

        Landing takes around an additional 40% of capability. SpaceX is trying to better than by removing the legs and catching Starship/Booster on a couple of pegs. It's a really big vehicle so it needs to show a lot of leg to stand on and remain standing. The navigation is nearly the same for either method. The off-nominal cases and amount of margin are different.

        1. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: Good & bad

          Yeah - I fluffed the numbers on that one completely... my fault for not actually looking them up.

          F9 is 17.5/22.8 (albeit for a drone ship) in the latest version I can find numbers for - that's over 75%. For RTLS (I can only find GTO data here, not LEO) it's 42%.

          SS/SH isn't the same design, though some of the same considerations will apply - very limited landing gear being just one of the changes.

          Of course 25*40% is still alot more than 100%, as in ten times as much... And B1067 has made only one RTLS, the other 24 flights have been Drone ship landings, so it's 24*75% + 40% which is more than eighteen times as much payload.

    5. Kev99 Silver badge

      Re: Good & bad

      If they're using the standard LOX + LH2 fuel, what's creating CO2?

      1. Mishak Silver badge

        Only for the second stage

        The first is using the "new standard" of LOX and CH4.

      2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

        Re: Good & bad

        LH2 is not particularly standard:

        SLS: SRBs+LH2

        Vulcan: SRBs+methane for stage 1, LH2 for stage 2

        Falcon 9: RP1 (kerosene)

        New Glenn: Methane for stage 1, LH2 for stage 2

        Starship: Methane

        SRBs use powdered aluminium bound with hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene. That second one is a long chain of carbon atoms. The aluminium comes from electrolysis and the electricity (as I recently looked up) is 83% from fossil fuels. Liquid hydrogen does not grow on trees. The cheapest source is reforming natural gas (burning just the carbon in methane). In theory hydrogen can come from electrolysis of water but the electricity to do it is expensive (and 83% from fossil fuels).

    6. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Good & bad

      "1) Extra CO2, pollution etc

      2) Limits lift capacity."

      Number two much more than number one.

      The internet and satellite communications is taking away many reasons for people to travel for many business matters. Way back I used to do a lot more courier work as a side hustle. With e-signing being accepted as a better way to commit fraud, there isn't the same demand for important documents to be hand carried. There's still some instances where couriers are used, but you need to have an in.

      I find the Vulcan a good system as SRB's are used to increase payload to a given orbit so customers buy as much rocket as they need for their needs. SpaceX makes reuse work since about 2/3rds of their launches are their own in-house sats and they are doing a lot of them.

      1. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: Good & bad

        "SpaceX makes reuse work since about 2/3rds of their launches are their own in-house sats and they are doing a lot of them."

        And even without their own launches they'd still be making reuse work, because it amortises the cost of the booster over several flights, even with a little extra fuel cost...

  5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    On the upside

    Well done to Blue for 1st time to orbit

    But

    They got a lot of practice in with New Shepperd first.

    It's a bit disappointing they didn't manage a first stage recovery given the considerable Isp gain of LO2/LH2

    SX showed once you can recover the first stage (and reuse it) after a cost effective refurb (that last bit was what f**ked the Shuttle) your profit skyrockets

    However that is (in principle) the easy part.

    If y ou run the numbers the orbital stage (per unit mass) has about 11x the Kinetic and Potential energies of the first stage (using the F9 stg1 altitude and velocity information. I'm guessing NG has more of the 50/50 velocity spit of conventional ELV's, but I could be wrong).

    Time will tell if they become effective competitors to SX.

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Re: On the upside

      First up, New Glenn first stage is methane, not hydrogen so it lands with methane. New Shepard is single stage, hydrogen only but the advantage for landing with hydrogen is not specific impulse. Landing gets easier as you make thrust to weight worse. As hydrogen is low density it requires a big heavy tank, sometimes with thermal insulation. It takes a big turbo pump to get the fuel up to pressure. Many designs compromise Isp by cheaping out on the size of the pumps so the rocket is light enough to lift off the launch pad. All that extra weight is an advantage for landing because you can get the thrust to weight low enough to hover and have to rocket lower itself gently to the landing pad.

      Falcon 9 cannot get the thrust that low. If they start the landing burn too early velocity reaches zero before altitude then the rocket drops like a rock (or goes back up). If they start too late altitude reaches zero before velocity and the rest must be handled with lithobraking.

      Hydrogen can work out as a good second stage where Isp has more value than thrust to weight. It has been supplanted by denser fuels for first stages for everything but shuttle derivatives and Ariane, both of which need solid rocket boosters to get off the ground.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Unhappy

        "It has been supplanted by denser fuels for first stages"

        Delta IV used H2 for both stages and could lift off without SRB's

        I'm not disagreeing with you but architecture has a big part to play in this.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: On the upside

      "They got a lot of practice in with New Shepperd first."

      SpaceX has loads more experience with Falcon so should have had a better chance to nail an orbital flight much sooner with Starship.

      Way back, a music teacher taught me that it isn't "practice makes perfect", but "perfect practice makes perfect". If I was practicing in a sloppy manner, I'd never get really good.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Did Bozo forget

    That he should be bringing people home that he shipwrecked and left in an old can in space?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Did Bozo forget

      Are you, perchance, confusing Blue Origin with Boeing?

  7. Zolko Silver badge

    à banana for scale

    primary objective was to reach orbit, and New Glenn achieved that, with the Blue Ring Pathfinder payload

    How much is that in bananas ? I think we need à new ElReg unit about the amont of bananas à rocket is able to put into LEO. A SpaceX Starship for exemple would weight 0 in this unit since it didn't put à single banana to orbit (yet). And no, an orbit that ends in the ocean doesn't count

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: à banana for scale

      FWIW, none of the Starship launches to date have been intended to go into orbit. They are test flights. With booms.

  8. JRStern Bronze badge

    Congrats to orbit

    I'm a bit baffled that Musk's big fat Starship hasn't managed orbit yet.

    Too many other systems to develop first, I get that, but ... I mean, given that Mars is the putative target, a mere Earth orbit would seem trivial.

    Catching things with chopsticks, I dunno man, seems to be focusing on the wrong things.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Congrats to orbit

      "I'm a bit baffled that Musk's big fat Starship hasn't managed orbit yet."

      They haven't tried to go to orbit yet. They are focused on reuse so they need to work out thermal protection and reliable engine restart/performance in space or they will be putting useless lumps into LEO that they won't have any clue about where/when they might come down.

    2. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: Congrats to orbit

      "I'm a bit baffled that Musk's big fat Starship hasn't managed orbit yet."

      Have you been watching carefully... Do you think they're going to accidentally get to orbit?

      If they *had* got to orbit then I'd be really worried.

      They *have* got to orbital energies, which is what they were aiming for.

      Catching things with chopsticks is one of the biggest things they have to get right for SS/SH to go further than LEO.

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        IT Angle

        "Do you think they're going to accidentally get to orbit?"

        Actually something like that did happen with the Atlas ICBM. *

        The pressure stabilised tanks and gradually rising engine performance meant that it looked like it could reach orbit.

        IOW an SSTO by accident.

        The thing is it's not SSTO that makes SSTO interesting, it's return from orbit that makes it so interesting. 1 stage. 2 directions. Like every other transportation system on the planet.

        *Actually used by President Eisenhower during project SCORE. here the first (tape based) store-and-forward orbital relay node.

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