Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has landed the booster of its New Glenn mega-rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean on just its second attempt — making it the second company to perform such a feat, following Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
It’s an accomplishment that will help the new rocket system become an option to send larger payloads to space, the Moon, and beyond.
Thursday’s launch wasn’t just about the landing attempt, though. The upper stage of New Glenn is carrying the company’s first commercial payload: twin spacecraft for NASA that will go travel to Mars to study the red planet’s atmosphere. The upper stage is supposed to deploy those spacecraft later Thursday.
New Glenn’s first launch was in January, and Blue Origin experienced a number of delays in getting the second rocket to the launch pad.
The rocket finally took off from Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Thursday at around 3:55 p.m. ET. At about four minutes into the flight, the second stage separated and headed further into space, while the New Glenn booster began its journey back towards Earth. Roughly 10 minutes into the flight, the 189-foot-tall booster touched down on the platform.
Blue Origin had attempted to bring the New Glenn booster back on the rocket’s first flight in January. But the booster exploded before it had a chance to land on the drone ship.
This story is developing…
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