Blue Origin, founded by Amazon multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos, launched its giant New Glenn rocket for a mission that became its "first major test," UNN reports, citing CNN.
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With two satellites on board, destined for a long and winding journey to Mars, New Glenn lifted off from the US Space Force Base at Cape Canaveral shortly before 4:00 PM ET (11:00 PM Kyiv time) on Thursday.
Blue Origin also landed the rocket's first stage on a sea platform for the first time, a huge step forward in the company's quest to make the New Glenn rocket reusable, less expensive, and a better competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Blue Origin had planned to launch the NASA mission called Escapade on Sunday, but due to cloud cover, the launch was delayed. The company then had to work with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which recently imposed a ban on launching most rockets during daylight hours due to the government shutdown, to find a new launch window.
The launch of Escapade (short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration Dynamics Explorers) was New Glenn's first flight with a customer payload on board. The rocket made its maiden flight in January, carrying a demonstration technology developed by Blue Origin in its cargo bay.
During that January mission, the company failed to recover the first stage of New Glenn – the lower part of the rocket that provides the initial burst of power at liftoff.
Blue Origin attributed the failed attempt to an incorrect engine re-ignition. However, on Thursday, the company appeared to encounter no such problems: New Glenn's first stage safely landed on a sea barge named after Bezos' mother, Jacklyn.
Similar to Blue Origin's main competitor, SpaceX, which has long dominated the commercial launch market, New Glenn is designed with partial reusability to reduce costs.
A failed booster landing would not necessarily affect companies' assessment of the mission's overall success, as the primary goal of any rocket launch is to safely deliver the payload into orbit. However, before the launch, Blue Origin made it clear that the stages of assembling and re-launching rocket components are crucial to the company's business model.
Blue Origin stated that it had focused on refining the New Glenn rocket for the past 10 months, hoping to ensure a successful booster landing.
Iconic Mission to Mars
In this mission, New Glenn was given one of the most exciting tasks that could be entrusted to a rocket. It delivered two Escapade satellites to Lagrange Point 2 (L2) - a cosmic force balance point located approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
Lagrange points can be useful for various types of missions, as they allow spacecraft to potentially remain in orbit for a very long time, using minimal fuel. For example, the James Webb Space Telescope is orbiting around the L2 point.
In this case, the Escapade satellites will use L2 as a kind of orbital bypass, where they will wait for their destination - Mars - to approach Earth along its orbital trajectory. In late 2026, when the next Mars transfer window opens, the satellites will leave L2, briefly return to Earth, and embark on their final journey to the Red Planet.
Both spacecraft are expected to enter Martian orbit in September 2027.
Only then will Escapade begin its primary scientific mission. A team of researchers led by the University of California, Berkeley, will study the planet's atmosphere, trying to understand why Mars began losing its once-dense atmosphere billions of years ago and assess the radiation environment for future explorers.
"During the Escapade mission, two satellites will conduct simultaneous measurements across virtually all upper layers of the planet's atmosphere and magnetosphere, at altitudes ranging from 160 to 10,000 kilometers," states a press release from the University of California, Berkeley, dedicated to the mission. "Coordinated multipoint observations are necessary... to disentangle cause-and-effect relationships within the system."
Escapade is part of NASA's SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) program, which aims to encourage researchers and companies to develop ways to use small and inexpensive spacecraft to conduct scientific research at a significantly lower cost than usual.
The mission was estimated to cost less than $100 million, compared to approximately $300-600 million for other NASA satellites operating in Mars orbit.