Lead
On Thursday, November 14, 2025, Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy-lift rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and delivered two NASA science probes on a deep-space trajectory while the 320-foot (98 m) first-stage booster performed a precision propulsive touchdown on an offshore recovery platform 375 miles (600 km) east of Florida. Liftoff occurred at 3:55 p.m. EST (20:55 UTC) after earlier weather and a solar-storm delay; the booster reignited during descent and settled onto the ship’s deck about nine minutes after launch. The flight marked the first successful offshore recovery of an orbital-class New Glenn booster and the initial orbital-customer mission for the vehicle. Blue Origin said teams will move the booster to Port Canaveral for inspection with plans to reuse it on an upcoming lunar-cargo mission.
Key takeaways
- Launch date and time: November 14, 2025, at 3:55 p.m. EST (20:55 UTC) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
- Booster size and engines: New Glenn’s first stage measures about 320 ft (98 m) tall and 23 ft (7 m) in diameter, powered by seven BE-4 engines producing more than 3.8 million pounds of thrust at full power.
- Recovery: The booster reached roughly 79 miles (127 km) altitude, performed descent burns and touched down on Blue Origin’s recovery vessel Jacklyn at a location ~375 miles (600 km) east of Cape Canaveral about nine minutes after liftoff.
- Payload: Two identical NASA ESCAPADE spacecraft (each ~0.5 metric ton) were deployed; they will cruise for roughly a year before departing on a nearly two-year trip to Mars, arriving in September 2027 and beginning science operations in 2028.
- Costs and contracts: NASA paid about $20 million to Blue Origin for this launch; ESCAPADE development is reported at roughly $80 million and was built by Rocket Lab under UC Berkeley management.
- Operational context: This is Blue Origin’s second New Glenn flight; the first orbital attempt in January succeeded on ascent but the booster failed to relight and was lost at sea. SpaceX has logged 532 Falcon booster landings to date; Blue Origin now has one orbital-class New Glenn recovery and 34 suborbital New Shepard recoveries.
Background
Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos around 25 years ago, has pursued reusable rocketry as a core business strategy alongside competitors such as SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. The company’s New Glenn rocket—named for astronaut John Glenn—is a two-stage heavy launcher intended to serve commercial, civil and national security missions, and to support human lunar logistics in NASA’s Artemis architecture. New Glenn’s first-stage reuse is central to Blue Origin’s economics: the company plans to fly boosters multiple times, with long-term targets of dozens of reuses per vehicle.
The New Glenn program has progressed cautiously. Blue Origin’s first New Glenn flew in January 2025; while that flight met ascent objectives, the booster failed to restart during descent and was lost at sea. Engineers implemented propellant management and engine-bleed control changes ahead of this second flight. The recent success follows a decade of development milestones for the company, including the earlier New Shepard suborbital vehicle that achieved propulsive landings starting in 2015.
Main event
After pre-launch delays caused by poor weather and a solar radiation event earlier in the week, New Glenn departed Cape Canaveral at 3:55 p.m. EST. The vehicle’s cluster of seven BE-4 main engines burned for nearly three minutes, producing more than 3.8 million pounds of sea-level-equivalent thrust to push the two-stage stack downrange and into a transplanetary ascent profile.
Following MECO and stage separation, the hydrogen-fueled second stage with dual BE-3U engines continued toward deep space while the first stage climbed to approximately 79 miles (127 km) before beginning a controlled reentry. The booster executed upper-atmosphere reignitions to decelerate, then performed a final three-engine descent burn and extended landing legs to set down on Blue Origin’s offshore ship Jacklyn.
The touchdown occurred about nine minutes after liftoff at a recovery location reported as roughly 375 miles (600 km) east of Cape Canaveral. Live feeds showed company facilities cheering the on-target landing; the booster will be returned to Port Canaveral for inspection and refurbishment with the goal of reusing it on Blue Origin’s planned Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar cargo mission next year.
Analysis & implications
The successful offshore recovery materially narrows the operational gap between Blue Origin and the market leader, SpaceX. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has amassed hundreds of booster recoveries—532 landings by public tally—creating a well-established cadence and refurbishment pipeline. Blue Origin’s single New Glenn recovery does not equate to that track record, but it demonstrates the hardware and procedures required for large-orbital-stage propulsive recovery.
Economically, booster reuse is critical to lowering per-launch costs. Blue Origin’s ability to refurbish and rapidly re-fly New Glenn boosters will determine whether the company can offer competitively low prices for commercial and government customers. NASA’s decision to accept ESCAPADE on an unproven launcher for roughly $20 million suggests agencies are willing to trade some certification risk for cost savings when payloads and missions permit.
Strategically, New Glenn is positioned for civil, commercial and defense missions: the U.S. Space Force selected Blue Origin last year as a third launch provider alongside SpaceX and ULA. The Space Force and other government bodies are expected to review flight telemetry and recovery data to assess New Glenn’s readiness for classified and human-rated missions, which require formal certification processes that remain ongoing.
Operational scale-up will be the next test. Blue Origin says it is increasing manufacturing and building ahead of need, but turning a single successful recovery into a reliable, high-cadence operation requires supply-chain resilience, repeatable refurbishment workflows and flight-proven margins—areas where SpaceX currently has an advantage.
Comparison & data
| Metric | SpaceX Falcon 9 | Blue Origin New Glenn (orbital) | Blue Origin New Shepard (suborbital) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reported booster landings | 532 | 1 | 34 |
| Typical reuse target per booster | ~10–20 (operational) | up to 25 (company target) | multiple quick-turn flights |
The table summarizes public tallies and company-stated reuse goals. SpaceX’s large sample size gives it operational confidence; Blue Origin’s New Glenn has moved from single-flight validation to demonstrated recovery, but metrics such as time-to-refurbish and turnaround cadence will determine commercial competitiveness.
Reactions & quotes
Company leadership framed the flight as a technical and organizational milestone while noting work ahead to increase launch cadence and certify the vehicle for broader mission classes.
“We achieved full mission success today,”
Dave Limp, CEO, Blue Origin (company statement)
NASA and mission scientists emphasized that the ESCAPADE probes reached deployment and that their long-term transit to Mars is underway.
“ESCAPADE is healthy post-launch and ready for the next chapter of its journey to Mars,”
Rob Lillis, Principal Investigator, ESCAPADE (UC Berkeley/NASA payload)
Analysts noted the symbolic importance of a large orbital-stage recovery by a second company, while cautioning that scale, cost and certification remain the deciding factors for market share shifts.
“A successful recovery is necessary but not sufficient—repeatability and economics are the real tests,”
Independent industry analyst
Unconfirmed
- The precise schedule for Blue Origin’s planned reuse on the Blue Moon Mark 1 mission is described by the company as tentative; the date and final manifest remain subject to change.
- Public details on the exact engineering changes to propellant management and engine-bleed control have not been fully disclosed; technical summaries are limited to company statements.
- Certification timelines and formal Space Force or NASA approvals for routine military or human-rated missions have not been completed and depend on agency review of telemetry and inspection results.
Bottom line
Thursday’s flight was a milestone: a large orbital-class booster returning to a seaborne deck demonstrates that Blue Origin’s New Glenn hardware and recovery procedures are capable of propulsive landings. That achievement narrows a practical gap with SpaceX, but it does not yet equal the operational depth and cost-trajectory that come with hundreds of repeat flights.
The next months will be decisive. Engineers must validate the booster through inspection and refurbishment, and Blue Origin must demonstrate consistent turnarounds and reliability to win sustained commercial and government business. For NASA’s ESCAPADE science team and planetary researchers, the mission’s success advances measurements of Martian space weather and provides data that will aid future crewed and robotic exploration.