Blue Origin announced Tuesday that the test payload for the first launch of its new rocket, New Glenn, is ready for launch. The company released an image of the “Blue Ring” Pathfinder nestled into half of the rocket’s payload fairing.
“There is a growing demand to rapidly move and deploy equipment and infrastructure across multiple orbits,” said Dave Limp, CEO of the company. said on LinkedIn. “Blue Ring has advanced propulsion and communications capabilities to help government and commercial customers handle these operations accurately and efficiently.”
This week’s news— historically Blue Origin has been tight-lipped about new products, but is becoming more open as the debut of its flagship New Glenn rocket approaches — appears to have a purpose. .
What Blue wants for Christmas is…
First of all, the relatively small payload in contrast to the size of the payload fairing emphasizes that the rocket offers a larger volume than most conventional boosters. New Glenn’s payload fairing has a diameter of 7 meters (23 feet), as opposed to the traditional 5 meters (16.4 feet). It looks spacious inside.
Additionally, the company has told the Federal Aviation Administration and other regulators that it believes New Glenn is ready to fly after conducting high-temperature fire tests at Launch Complex 36 and then awaiting approval to launch from Florida. seems to be sending a public signal. This is a not-so-subtle message to regulators to hurry and complete the necessary paperwork for launch activities. In these cases, it is not clear what is preventing the blaze and launch approval, but it is often environmental issues or flight termination system certification.
Blue Origin’s Tuesday release was carefully worded. The headline said New Glenn was “on track” to launch this year and said the Blue Ring payload was “ready to go” for launch this year. As of now, there is no conceptual or general release date. The high-temperature combustion test has been postponed multiple times since the company installed the rocket on the launch pad on Nov. 23. The exam date was originally scheduled for November, but it was recently held last weekend.
After years of delays in developing the rocket, which was originally scheduled to debut in 2020, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos hired a new chief executive to run the company a little more than a year ago. Limp, the Amazon executive, was tasked with transforming Blue Origin’s slow-moving culture into something more agile and urgent, and was told to launch New Glenn by the end of 2024.
