%202_e.png)
New Glenn’s Big Leap: Blue Origin’s Milestone Toward Reusable Orbit
By Kate Choi;
The Lawrenceville School, NJ
At 3:55 pm ET on November 13, 2025, New Glenn successfully launched twin NASA spacecraft (ESCAPADE) and landed the fully reusable first stage booster on a drone ship, demonstrating Blue Origin's capability and inspiring confidence in space innovation.
Blue Origin was one of the companies that participated in NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program. The program plans to support the development of small spacecraft missions for planetary science. This November, New Glenn deployed NASA’s Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) twin-spacecraft. ESCAPADE aims to propose a low-cost approach and to develop a unique orbital trajectory. The twin ESCAPADE is each named Blue and Gold. The orbiters will soar towards Lagrange Point 2, a cosmic balance point about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, rather than straight to Mars. The Lagrange points act as gravitational wells where the pull of the sun and Earth are in balance. According to Wattles, a journalist at CNN Space & Science, “the conditions can allow spacecraft to linger without being dragged away.”
The cost of New Glenn was less than $100 million, significantly lower than typical satellites, launches typically range between $300 million and $600 million. This lower cost enables more frequent missions and broader scientific investigations, such as studying Mars’s magnetosphere and atmospheric loss with the twin orbiting Mars to study its magnetosphere and understand its climate history. Both spacecraft, both projected to reach Martian orbit in September 2027.
New Glenn is a partially reusable two-stage rocket with a notably tall height of more than 98 meters. One distinctive feature of New Glenn is its 7-meter fairing, which offers increased volume compared to 5-meter-class commercial launch systems. Blue Origin attempted to land the first stage on its sea-based landing platform located downrange off the Florida coast, named Jaclyn. The first stage will autonomously descend to the platform while six hydraulically actuated legs, a device using pressurized fluid to create mechanical movement, will activate to support it during its landing. The first stage is reusable and is built for a minimum of 25 missions. It is powered by seven of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines, which are powerful liquefied natural gas-fueled, oxygen-rich staged combustion engines with 3.8 million pounds of thrust. The second stage, the top half of the rocket, is accompanied with two BE-3Us, liquid oxygen or hydrogen engines that yield over 350,000 pounds of vacuum thrust. This way, the engines are beneficial for operating in space.
Success was not guaranteed, given the fact that spacecraft components are affected once they are in space. The reduction of costs posed more risks regarding this matter. Furthermore, the development of the BE-4 engines took a much longer time than expected. Engine tests in 2019 revealed turbo pump failures, where the pump malfunctioned due to mechanical or electrical issues. Combustion instability issues also had to be addressed in 2021. In 2022, two engines failed during full-duration tests, causing further delays. Blue Origin also faced some more challenges earlier in the year because the first stage was unable to land on Jaclyn. On March 31st, the Federal Aviation Administration revealed that this problem was due to “the inability of New Glenn’s first stage to restart the engines, preventing a reentry burn from occurring, and resulting in the loss of the stage.” At its last step, while the New Glenn was first planned to be launched on November 9th, Blue Origin had to delay it to the 13th due to weather conditions in Florida.
New Glenn’s reusable first-stage booster serves as the key driver of reduced launch costs. The rocket’s launch also suggested a significant pivot for Blue Origin. SpaceX, an American aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, has dominated the market with 280 launches in the past two years. Blue Origin’s focus on larger cargo capacity and government partnerships diversifies the use cases, strengthening the rocket’s commercial viability. Blue Origin also announced that it plans to develop a “super-heavy” version of this vehicle, named the New Glenn 9x4, likely intended to increase its competition against SpaceX’s Starship. According to UniverseToday, “Both rockets are intended to improve rocket performance and launch cadence, and to ensure that Blue Origin remains competitive in the growing satellite launch market.”
Works Cited
Costa, J. (2025, November 13). Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket Go for Launch! NASA Science. https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/escapade/2025/11/13/blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket-go-for-launch/
EscaPADE - NASA Science. (2025). Science.nasa.gov. https://science.nasa.gov/mission/escapade/
Foust, J. (2025, March 31). Investigation into failed New Glenn landing completed. SpaceNews. https://spacenews.com/investigation-into-failed-new-glenn-landing-completed/
New Glenn Launches NASA’s ESCAPADE, Lands Fully Reusable Booster | Blue Origin. (2025, November 13). Blue Origin. https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-glenn-launches-nasa-escapade-lands-fully-reusable-booster
New Glenn Mission NG-1 | Blue Origin. (2025). Blue Origin. https://www.blueorigin.com/missions/ng-1
New Glenn Payload User’s Guide. (2018, October). Blue Origin.
TrendPulse Finance. (2025, November 13). Blue Origin’s New Glenn Launch and Its Implications for the Commercial Space Industry. Ainvest; AInvest. https://www.ainvest.com/news/blue-origin-glenn-launch-implications-commercial-space-industry-2511/
Warren, H. (2025, November 13). Blue Origin launches ESCAPADE on New Glenn, successfully lands first stage booster. NASASpaceFlight.com. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/11/ng-2-escapade-launch
Wattles, J. (2025, November 8). Why an unprecedented NASA mission is set to take off on a winding journey to Mars. CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/08/science/mars-mission-nasa-space-launch
Williams, M. (2025, November 23). Blue Origin to Build a “Super Heavy” Rocket to Compete with Starship. Universe Today. https://www.universetoday.com/articles/blue-origin-to-build-a-super-heavy-rocket-to-compete-with-starship
Xu, S., Lillis, R., Curry, S., Hara, T., Curtis, D., Taylor, E., & Courtade, S. (2024). ESCAPADE Update: unraveling cause and effect in Mars’ hybrid magnetosphere. Europlanet Science Congress 2024, 17. https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2024-133
Comments