Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, achieved a feat by successfully recovering propellant for its massive rocket

The New Glenn rocket carried two spacecraft for NASA’s scientific mission called “Escapade”, which was intended to study the planet Mars.

SpaceX and its boss Elon Musk are no longer the only ones to achieve this feat. Blue Origin, the space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, managed to recover propellant from its massive New Glenn rocket by landing it in a controlled manner on a barge at sea on Thursday, November 13.

The New Glenn rocket, which is nearly 100 meters high, lifted off for the second time in its history, from Cape Canaveral in Florida, shortly before 4 p.m. local time (10 p.m. in Paris). It carries two spacecraft for NASA’s scientific mission called “Escapade”, which is intended to study the planet Mars.

Minutes after liftoff and following the separation of the rocket’s two stages, the first stage propelling assembly successfully landed on a barge at sea, in a highly complex maneuver similar to that mastered by rival company SpaceX. This success allowed Jeff Bezos’ company to accelerate its launch rate and reduce costs.

Once in space, the two spacecraft, named Blue and Gold, will position themselves in orbit “safe parking” to stay close to Earth and wait for the right moment to leave for Mars, explained Joseph Westlake, a NASA official. The spacecraft are not expected to reach orbit of the red planet until 2027, when they will begin studying its climate, paving the way for human exploration.

Beyond the scientific interest associated with the mission, the launch was highly anticipated due to the rivalry between multi-billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. This has recently intensified around NASA’s Artemis lunar program, which plans the return of Americans to the Moon in the coming years, after the space agency in October raised the possibility of doing without the sector’s flagship company, SpaceX, due to development delays.