On top of that, conditions in the Atlantic Ocean are expected to worsen this week, and Blue Origin is trying to land New Glenn’s booster on a drone ship — similar to how Elon Musk’s SpaceX often recovers the core of its Falcon 9 rockets.
New Glenn’s success is crucial to Blue Origin, as the company is trying to enter a heavy-lift market currently dominated by SpaceX. Up until now, Blue Origin has been primarily focused on launching tourists and science experiments to sub-orbital space in its much smaller New Shepard rocket. New Glenn is supposed to help unlock new business for Blue Origin, which already has contracts to deliver payloads to space with NASA, the Space Force, Amazon’s Project Kuiper, and more.