Just one week after successfully launching its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture announced plans to develop an even more powerful variant capable of delivering significantly heavier payloads to Earth orbit and beyond.
The new super-heavy-lift version of Blue Origin’s most powerful rocket, designated New Glenn 9×4, will feature nine methane-fueled BE-4 engines on the first stage compared to seven on the current configuration, and four hydrogen-fueled BE-3U engines on the second stage up from two. The enhanced rocket will also incorporate a larger fairing, or nose-cone section, measuring 8.7 meters (28.5 feet) in diameter, compared to 7 meters (23 feet) for the fairing currently in use on the standard New Glenn 7×2 variant.
Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin indicated it is working to enhance the performance of rocket engines on both the New Glenn 9×4 super-heavy variant and the standard 7×2 model currently operational. Additional upgrades will include a reusable fairing designed to reduce launch costs by eliminating the need to manufacture new nose cones for each mission, a lower-cost tank design that reduces manufacturing expenses, and a higher-performing thermal protection system that better withstands the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry.
The improvements will be incrementally integrated into upcoming New Glenn missions starting with the next launch, which Blue Origin expects to occur early next year. “These enhancements will immediately benefit customers already manifested on New Glenn to fly to destinations including low Earth orbit, the moon and beyond,” the company stated in an online update posted today.
Customers will be able to choose between the standard 7×2 and super-heavy 9×4 variants depending on their mission requirements, with applications including launches to low Earth orbit such as satellite deployments for Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet mega-constellation; missions to the moon and deep space including next year’s Blue Moon Mark 1 uncrewed lunar landing demonstration; and national security missions such as the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system currently under development.
Blue Origin indicated the 9×4 model will be capable of delivering more than 70 metric tons to low Earth orbit compared to 45 tons for the 7×2 configuration, more than 14 tons to geosynchronous orbit where communications satellites operate, and more than 20 tons on trajectories from Earth to the moon. These capabilities would make New Glenn 9×4 more powerful than SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which can deliver 64 tons to low Earth orbit, but less powerful than SpaceX’s Starship system, which is designed to carry 100 to 150 tons to low Earth orbit when fully operational.
The performance enhancements appear likely to intensify Blue Origin’s competition with SpaceX and United Launch Alliance in the commercial and government launch markets. New Glenn has flown only twice as of this week, compared to hundreds of launches for SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and scores of launches for United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 vehicle. However, last week’s successful launch of twin Mars probes and the first-ever recovery of an orbital-class New Glenn first-stage booster have significantly raised Blue Origin’s profile within the launch industry and demonstrated the company’s technical capabilities.
The recovered booster, nicknamed “Never Tell Me the Odds” in a reference to the Star Wars franchise, autonomously flew itself back to a precision touchdown in the Atlantic Ocean atop Blue Origin’s recovery barge, which was named Jacklyn in honour of Jeff Bezos’ mother. This week the booster was transported back to port and moved to the company’s processing facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida, with Bezos personally present to observe the arrival of the reusable rocket stage.
The successful booster recovery represents a major milestone for Blue Origin, demonstrating the company can recover and potentially reuse the most expensive components of its New Glenn rocket, a capability that SpaceX pioneered with Falcon 9 and that has dramatically reduced launch costs by eliminating the need to build new first stages for every mission.
