!spacechads !ifrickinglovescience
#NewGlenn’s inaugural mission aims to send @NASA’s ESCAPADE to Mars, with a launch date no earlier than October 13.
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) August 23, 2024
New Glenn is 98m tall and has 7m of diameter. It can carry up to 45 metric tons to LEO on reusable configuration.
Blue Origin will attempt retro-propulsive landing on the first flight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EscaPADE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn
Reminder that Blue Origin is building and testing their own Lunar Lander, the Blue Moon, and with New Glenn entering service it's becoming likelier they could beat SpaceX by being in service earlier than the Starship HLS (mostly due to Starship's complexity).
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What makes Starship more complex? Is it like a new design from scratch vs more standard New Glenn?
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New Glenn is almost ready and the Mk1 Blue Moon is supposed to launch next year (likely 2026 considering delays common in the space industry). The Blue Moon lander is much smaller than starship, the BE-7 engines were already tested and are going through production. They're also developing the life support systems and even though Blue Moon will make use of orbital refueling, it will be just 2 launches.
Starship HLS will require 10 tanker launches to fuel it, they still have to test orbital refueling and there's no sight of SpaceX developing life-support systems for Starship, which is something NASA will carefully certify, they won't put their astronauts on board without rigorous checks.
So in a nutshell, Starship HSL architecture is very complex, so Blue Origin's advantage relies on simplicity and scale.
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wtf Jeff Bezos posts on rDrama
Surely this will be the year New Glenn launches
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