FAA issues launch license for Blue Origin New Glenn rocket

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Dec 28, 2024

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ORLANDO, Fla. — The Space Coast could be seeing another new rocket fly soon as the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday issued a launch license for Blue Origin’s New Glenn.

An FAA statement said Jeff Bezos’ rocket company had “met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements” for its heavy-lift rocket, which is set up for its debut mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 36.

“The FAA is committed to enabling the success of the U.S. commercial space transportation industry without compromising public safety,” Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation Kelvin B. Coleman said. “By working closely with Blue Origin, the FAA issued this new launch license well in advance of the statutory deadline for the historic maiden flight of New Glenn.”

The Part 450 commercial license is good for five years, allowing launches of New Glenn as well as return landings of its first stage on a ship stationed downrange in the Atlantic, similar to how SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets’ first stages land on droneships.

“A big thanks to the FAA for the partnership, especially over the holidays. Here’s to NG-1 — we are really close, folks,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp wrote on X.

The 322-foot-tall rocket slated for a mission dubbed NG-1 went vertical on the pad more than a month ago. The company was awaiting regulatory approval to perform a hot fire as well as the FAA license. Although it got the OK to perform the hot fire earlier this month, it didn’t actually complete it until late Friday just hours after getting its FAA license.

“All we have left to do is mate our encapsulated payload…and then LAUNCH! Congrats to the many Blue folks on today’s test. Big day for our seven #BE4 engines, simultaneously firing for the first time for 24 seconds,” Limp posted.

The first launch, which originally had been tasked to send up a pair of Mars-bound satellites for NASA in October, had shifted with the agency deciding to hold off until New Glenn had at least one launch under its belt.

Blue Origin then had opted to fly its own payload and had been targeting November, but the company then changed its forecast language to simply say before the end of the year.

With the FAA license and hot fire test complete, a liftoff soon after the new year could be in the cards.

New Glenn’s first flight will bring up a pathfinder for the company’s Blue Ring hardware, which is designed to deliver payloads to their proper place in orbit once deployed. It will also be the first of two required flights to get certification by Space Force to fly national security missions.

The company also plans to attempt to land the first stage after launch on its recovery vessel Jacklyn, named after Bezos’ mother, as part of efforts to refly the stages up to 25 times.

New Glenn boosters powered by seven of the company’s BE-4 engines produce up to 3.9 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

The rocket stages are fabricated at Blue Origin’s factory in Merritt Island, adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, and then transported over to the launch site.

Blue Origin took over the lease for LC-36 in 2015. It had previously been used for government launches from 1962-2005, including lunar lander Surveyor 1 in 1967 and some of the Mariner probes. Bezos has invested more than $1 billion alone to get SLC-36 up and running for the launches.

While NASA has yet to announce its new target launch window for the Mars-bound mission called ESCAPADE, Blue Origin has several other customers that have been waiting for New Glenn to come online.

That includes several for Bezos’ former company Amazon, which has tasked New Glenn to help send up thousands of its Project Kuiper internet satellites to build a constellation that would compete with SpaceX’s Starlink.