Blue Origin Announces New Glenn Rocket Upgrades Fit For A Trip To The Moon

After its astir caller successful New Glenn mission, Blue Origin is announcing propulsion upgrades to its prima rocket, and plans for a larger "super-heavy people rocket" that puts nan institution successful moreover person title pinch SpaceX.

Blue Origin says New Glenn will get higher-performing engines astatine some stages, pinch nan full thrust of nan booster engines expanding from 3.9 cardinal lbf to 4.5 cardinal lbf. The full thrust of nan precocious shape of nan rocket, meanwhile, is going from 320,000 lbf to 400,000 lbf. Paired pinch a caller reusable fairing (the screen that goes complete nan payload of New Glenn) and an "updated lower-cost vessel design," Blue Origin claims that nan upgraded rocket will use customers heading to "low-Earth orbit, nan Moon and beyond."

The institution besides has different rocket connected nan roadmap, New Glenn 9x4, nan bigger related of nan existent New Glenn 7x2. Named for nan number of engines it has astatine each shape (nine connected nan booster stage, 4 connected nan precocious stage), New Glenn 9x4 tin transportation "over 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, complete 14 metric tons nonstop to geosynchronous orbit and complete 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection," Blue Origin says. Per an image shared by Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp on X, nan rocket is besides bigger than nan Saturn V rocket that ferried humans to nan Moon during NASA's Apollo 11 mission.

That catapults Blue Origin into nan aforesaid size scope arsenic SpaceX's Starship, which successfully deployed its payload for nan first clip successful August, and is now facing status arsenic SpaceX develops its next-generation model.

Both Blue Origin and SpaceX are competing to activity pinch NASA connected early Moon missions. If Blue Origin's lunar hunger wasn't clear from nan salient framing of nan Moon successful its New Glenn property images, nan institution reportedly plans to onshore its unmanned lunar lander connected nan Moon successful 2026.