Blue Origin to launch its 1st New Glenn rocket early Jan. 12: Watch it live

[Admin]

Blue Origin plans to launch the debut mission of its powerful New Glenn rocket early Friday morning (Jan. 10), and you can watch the action live.

Blue Origin to launch its 1st New Glenn rocket early Jan. 12: Watch it live : Read more

 

[Bobcat]

It is important to note that despite never having reached orbital space or orbital velocity that Blue Origin has already gathered in billions of dollars in government contracts. And trying a "moon shot" on your first attempt is not the smartest thing I have ever heard of. This is not all that likely to end well, especially since BO is using 1960's NASA methodologies that are extremely time and resource consuming.

 

[Tom R.]

For a decade USAF=>USSF has been desperate to replace the former ULA monopoly as well as stop using Russian rocket cores. That is the reason for subsidizing BO, SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and even ULA to get a technical alternative to get NSSL satellites into space. So far only one, maybe two (Rocket Lab), has worked out. This is a good example of tossing money at the wall and seeing if it sticks. But reversing the poor choices made in creating the ULA monopoly and dependence on RD180s has probably been more expensive than any funds that original decision might have saved.
The silver lining to all of this spending is that now the US has a brand new commercial launch capability which is dominating the market.

 

[Pingas62]

For a decade USAF=>USSF has been desperate to replace the former ULA monopoly as well as stop using Russian rocket cores. That is the reason for subsidizing BO, SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and even ULA to get a technical alternative to get NSSL satellites into space. So far only one, maybe two (Rocket Lab), has worked out. This is a good example of tossing money at the wall and seeing if it sticks. But reversing the poor choices made in creating the ULA monopoly and dependence on RD180s has probably been more expensive than any funds that original decision might have saved.
The silver lining to all of this spending is that now the US has a brand new commercial launch capability which is dominating the market.

Oh Tommy ...your ULA wisdom is Vast !!! Lockheed development of their rocket was way before ULA was created ..the US government "steering" of their engine selection was after the collapse of the Communist USSR, our government was wanting to keep Russian rocket engineering from ending in North Korea...so they were told, why don't you use this engine instead....ULA was created when SpaceX couldn't launch a Banana, and the government needed to keep "payloads" going....today if all these government funds would go to the clear winner....we already be on Mars.

 

[Philly]

I just hope Blue hasn't gone from extremely methodological and conservative to push as hard as possible and fly as quickly as possible. I mean it seems like doing a few maybe 3 or 4, full wet dress rehearsals. where they fully fuel the NG and take the count down all the way to 0 but don't launch would have made a lot of sense before actually trying to launch. It is very reasonable to expect to find issues with each actual real world, wet dress rehearsal and then to give themselves the proper time to address each issue fully. Simulated computer count downs are NOT the same a real world tests.

Also a few more hot test fires of the 1st stage would of made sense. Better to find issues on the ground rather than 50 seconds into the 1st flight. Just doing these rather simple tests should give them a huge increase in confidence to launch, and to set expectations for the public and media.

It seems like some strange artificial goals like, launching before 2025 and launching on Bezos' birthday are actually driving Blue's launch goals rather than sound engineering choices. After 25 years Blue's team isn't going to flip and switch their culture quickly.

They also set expectations rather high and I have read plenty of articles about this flight is just a formality and NG is going to be flying about 3-4 flights this year with full payloads. Wow, considering Blue has never made it to orbit and this is their 1st 2 stage rocket, that is rather bold and opens the door to plenty of criticism if there is a failure.

Pushing too hard, also mean short cuts can be taken that compromise sound engineering. "Not knowing what you don't know" is always the hardest problem with brand new systems.