Blue Origin introduces its new Glenn reusable manned rocket

Comparing the size of New Glenn rockets with other devices

According to information on the NASA Blue Origin Flight Control Center website, the New Glenn orbital LV has been launched. Of the known characteristics, the diameter is 7 meters (23 feet) and 1.75 million kilograms (3.85 million pounds) of rocket thrust. For comparison: New Glenn's direct competitor, the Falcon 9, is 3.7 meters in diameter and has a thrust of 2.31 million kilograms.

The rocket itself is a two-stage. The first stage will be equipped with seven BE-4 engines, which use a mixture of methane and liquid oxygen as fuel. The second stage will be equipped with a modified BE-4U engine. As Bezos plans, New Glenn will become competitors to the SpaceX heavy Falcon family and will compete for the market for cargo delivery to orbit and the ISS.

Let SpaceX be pioneers in the development and launch of rockets with a returnable and potentially reusable first stage, the emergence of competitors was only a matter of time. Today, Blue Origin, a private aerospace company, presented to the public a draft of its own rocket with a returnable first stage. This is evidenced not only by the news on the official NASA website, but also by Twitter, company founder Jeffrey Bezos:
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New Glenn is not the first Blue Origin project. Previously, the company experienced return stages on the New Shepard rocket, whose target audience is space tourists.


Blue Origin video about launching New Shepard and successfully returning the stage to the ground

In 2015, many noticed that while Ilon Musk delivered cargo to orbit and landed the first stage of the Falcon 9 on the “patch” of a barge in the middle of the ocean, the Blue Origin guys toyed with a vertical launch of a much lighter prototype and its landing on the ground (and not at sea). A little less than a year has passed since then, and Blue Origin has taken the next step in challenging SpaceX's position in the market for cargo delivery using reusable steps.