What Blue Origin is Up To

[Yazata]

A full-size (and mass, I'm assuming) mockup of a New Glenn first stage booster was out at Port Canaveral the last couple of days, at a dock right next to the SpaceX dock, allowing crews to practice removing landed boosters from Blue's recovery barge.

It gives a good view of how large this thing really is. Not as large as the Starship booster, but pretty hefty nevertheless.

It's interesting that they elected not to use SpaceX style grid-fins on top of the booster to help guide its tail-first landing descent. Instead they have gone with fins similar to those that have successfully worked on their much smaller New Shephard suborbital rocket.

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[Zinjanthropos]

Almost looks fake, like little toy set. Looks totally devoid of signs indicating danger of any kind. I especially like the little tow motor that appears without a driver. Where is everybody? I think I can spot one worker in top photo, standing beside a white container bottom left of rocket. I see no one in bottom pic. Lots of vehicles and shadows appear as if Sun directly overhead so I figure it must be lunch…lol

Why so close to water? Looks like rocket was rolled off a barge possibly. Is this one of the reusables? Does it go on a barge once completed?

[Yazata]

Almost looks fake, like little toy set. Looks totally devoid of signs indicating danger of any kind.

There's a line of red caution tape.

Where is everybody? I think I can spot one worker in top photo, standing beside a white container bottom left of rocket. I see no one in bottom pic. Lots of vehicles and shadows appear as if Sun directly overhead so I figure it must be lunch…lol

Maybe. There are lots of cars but almost no people. Weird.

Lots of Blue Origin photos show beautiful facilities, but no workers doing anything. Just the opposite of Starbase where workers are swarming everywhere, but many facilities look kind of thrown together.

That illustrates the two companies' different philosophies I think. SpaceX makes it up as they go, then they learn what design concepts work and how well. Blue is more of a conventional aerospace company and they plan everything precisely down to a more finalized design before they ever move. So Blue takes forever to get anything done, but they are more apt to succeed the first time they fly. (NASA works the same way with SLS.) SpaceX flings ever-more-refined prototypes at the sky, expecting the first ones to fail (perhaps in unexpected ways) and then learns from how well they do and incorporates lessons learned in each succeeding one.

Why so close to water? Looks like rocket was rolled off a barge possibly. Is this one of the reusables?

Yeah, that's the idea. New Glenn will initially be like a bigger and more powerful Falcon-9 reusable booster. It will launch from Cape Canaveral, arch out over the ocean, release its expendible second stage (they plan a recoverable second stage eventually) and then the booster will come back down and land on a landing barge out in the Atlantic like the Falcons.

What they are practicing here is the processing of the booster when it arrives back at port and preparing it for transport back to Blue's factory at Kennedy Space Center to prepare for reflight.

Or would be practicing, if there were any workers there...

[Zinjanthropos]

if there were any workers there.

Like a scene out of the Twilight Zone. I still like the little forklift on the dock that doesn’t move.

[Yazata]

Blue has rolled out what I believe is their Flight 1 booster at Cape Canaveral. I'm guessing that it's headed to the pad for fueling tests and a static fire, ahead of it's projected first flight sometime before the end of this year.

It's certainly a big impressive rocket, smaller than Elon's Starship Superheavy, but bigger than just about any other rocket in existence. I believe that it will exceed the payload capability of three-cored Falcon Heavy, and will be reusable.

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Dave Limp (Blue Origin CEO) says

"#NewGlenn’s GS1 is on the move! Our transporter comprises two trailers connected by cradles and a strongback assembly designed in-house. There are 22 axles and 176 tires on this transport vehicle. It’s towed by an Oshkosh M1070, a repurposed U.S. Army tank transporter, with 505 horsepower and 1,825 pound-feet of torque. Seems fitting we’ve named it GERT -- Giant Enormous Rocket Truck. The distance between GERT’s front bumper and the trailer's rear is 310’, about the length of a football field. It’s a 23-mile, multiple-hour journey to our pad because we have to take the long way around."

nsNS

[Syne]

Dave Limp (Blue Origin CEO) says...

...he got into rockets to compensate?

[Yazata]

Dave Limp (Blue Origin CEO) says...

...he got into rockets to compensate?

I knew somebody was going to say that...

[Yazata]

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[Yazata]

The fully stacked New Glenn rolled out to the pad last night at Cape Canaveral and has gone vertical.

I still don't know when the NG first flight is scheduled.

Blue Origin photos

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[Yazata]

The FAA just issued a launch license for New Glenn's first flight from Cape Canaveral.

Blue had hoped to launch NG before the end of 2024, but given that there are only four more days left in the year, I expect it to fly in January.

The FAA says:

"Today, the FAA issued a Part 450 commercial space launch license authorizing the first launch of the Blue Origin New Glenn vehicle. The FAA determined Blue Origin met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements...

...The license allows Blue Origin to conduct orbital missions from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with the reusable New Glenn first stage landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. It is valid for five years."

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/statements/...statements

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