What Blue Origin is Up To

[Yazata]

Turns out that New Glenn's problem last night was an iced-up valve in an auxiliary power unit that powers a hydraulic pump. (Starship had similar problems on Flight 1.)

New Glenn's first flight is now pushed back to Wednesday night/Thursday morning. 1 AM EST at Cape Canaveral. (Just hours after Flight 7 is currently scheduled to go.)

nsNS

[Yazata]

Propellant loading has started

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/-27UPcCiH08

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9hmOwYOO1G4

[Yazata]

Launch was good, stage separation was good.

Second stage achieved orbit, which was their primary objective.

Booster performed its entry burn, but when it lit its landing burn all telemetry froze and it never landed on the recovery ship Jaclyn.

I'm assuming that the booster exploded if telemetry suddenly stopped like that.

(Blue Origin photo)

[Image: GhZZoc0WsAA94BK?format=jpg&name=large]

[C C]

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/bl...nn-rocket/

EXCERPT: But no one who really understands the difficulties of launching and landing rockets believed that Blue Origin would succeed in catching its first orbital booster. SpaceX required 19 launches before it finally landed an orbital rocket for the first time, back in December 2015. Blue Origin deserves credit for making the attempt, rather than criticism for failing to stick the landing.

[Yazata]

Multiple reports that Blue Origin CEO David Limp called a company-wide all-hands meeting this morning where he announced that approx. 10% of Blue Origin employees will be laid off. The cuts will be in all departments.

The reason given was "too much bureaucracy". (Has Jeff Bezos been watching DOGE sweep through the federal government?) It might be a good idea for Blue to get leaner and meaner.

People on X are saying that Blue's cash-burn rate must be awfully high if they keep a work force comparable to SpaceX but with far less top line revenue. (SpaceX has its Falcon-9 and Falcon Heavy orbital launch business, crew and cargo Dragon service to orbit and the ISS, Starlink and Starshield. Blue has its suborbital tourist rocket, sells BE-4 engines to ULA and has presold some New Glenn launches...)

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/ci...workforce/

nsNS

[Yazata]

Here's a video of what Blue's CEO told all the workers

https://x.com/CoastRocket/status/1890107981272084802

[Yazata]

Blue just conducted a successful static fire of their big New Glenn reusable rocket ahead of its planned November 9 launch.

https://x.com/davill/status/1984094714283585842

[Image: G4jgcIDXwAAiw-I?format=jpg&name=small]

[Yazata]

New Glenn's second flight is scheduled for 1:51 PM EST (11:51 AM PST, 2:51 PM EST, 1951 UTC) tomorrow Sunday November 9, from Launch Complex 36 at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.

The flight will launch NASA's ESCAPADE mission to Mars. This consists of two identical small spacecraft built by Rocketlab. These are intended to go into orbit around Mars and send back information about Mars' magnetic field.

After launching ESCAPADE towards Mars, New Glenn's first stage will attempt a booster landing on Blue Origin's recovery ship in the Atlantic.

[Image: G5PzZiGXAAAkQZU?format=jpg&name=medium]

[C C]

Launch on hold, or maybe finally confirmed to be a scrub.

[Yazata]

Yeah, it was a scrub.

For most of the countdown, weather looked terrible. But it suddenly cleared right before launch time. I think that the primary reason for the scrub was a Carnival cruise liner that had just left Port Canaveral intruding into the range. But there were other non-specified ground-support-equipment problems as well, that probably would have justified a scrub as well.

Unclear yet when they will reschedule to.