Blue Origin, the space tech company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, successfully launched its giant New Glenn rocket on Thursday, carrying with it a pair of twin NASA spacecraft bound for Mars.
The 321-foot (98 m) rocket, named after former U.S. astronaut John Glenn, launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida four days later than planned due to bad weather.
After leaving Mars orbit, the rocket booster also successfully landed back on an offshore platform, similar to the method used by rival company SpaceX. , But that was a notable first for Blue Origin.
The recovery and then reuse of powerful rocket boosters is seen as an essential part of cutting costs and making space flight more financially viable.
‘Next stop, Moon!’ – And then Mars?
An excited Bezos personally watched the action from launch control, where employees chanted “Next stop, moon!” Raised slogans. After the booster’s bull’s-eye landing. NASA officials and SpaceX’s Elon Musk also congratulated.
Twenty minutes after separation from the booster, the rocket’s upper stage accomplished the mission’s main objective by deploying two Mars orbiters into space.
The twin NASA spacecraft, known collectively as Escapade, will remain about a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth for a year until the planet again aligns with Mars, at which point they will head toward the red planet with the help of gravity assist.
What will Mars’ orbits do?
Upon reaching Mars in 2027, the spacecraft will map magnetic fields and solar winds in the planet’s upper atmosphere, observations that will shed light on how the planet became so dry and dusty.
“Escapade is going to bring an unprecedented stereo viewpoint because we’ll have two spacecraft at the same time,” said Rob Lillis, lead scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, before launch.
Scientists also want to continue to study how to protect astronauts from Mars’ harsh radiation environment on possible future flights to the Red Planet , However a return to the Moon has previously been planned with NASA’s Artemis program.
Musk’s SpaceX beat out Blue Origin for the first and second crew landings by using its Starship, which is about 100 feet (30 meters) taller than Bezos’s New Glenn. But Blue Origin has a NASA contract for the third Artemis moon landing.
More than half a century ago, twelve astronauts walked on the Moon during NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s and 70s. The space agency is pushing to return astronauts to the lunar surface by the end of the decade , And before China.
Edited by: Dmytro Lyubenko