Good morning, friends, and happy November. It’s your Space Coast correspondent James Sparvero with an update on the anticipated first flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
Last week, the new 188-foot-long first stage was hauled 23 miles from Blue Origin’s factory to Launch Complex 36, where, with the rest of the 300-foot rocket, could now launch by the end of the month.
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Since 2021, we’ve seen Blue Origin rockets launch tourists and celebrities, like founder Jeff Bezos and Star Trek’s William Shatner, to the edge of space from the Texas desert. (New Shepard rides to Zero-G have also included a Winter Park couple and Melbourne restaurant owner. But now, New Glenn will propel Bezos’ space company into the commercial space race here.
Like a SpaceX Falcon 9, New Glenn’s booster is designed to be recovered. (We saw Blue Origin’s recovery ship at the port in September). And when it first flies, New Glenn will launch without a paying customer.
Later, possibly in the spring, New Glenn will carry a pair of NASA satellites on their way to Mars. Two successful flights of the new rocket will be needed before Blue Origin could be awarded national security missions like SpaceX and ULA have.
There’s also plans for a lot of launches to build Amazon’s satellite Internet network, Project Kuiper, to rival SpaceX’s Starlink constellation.
And what I’ve always said is my favorite part about this rocket and launch pad is the visibility up and down the beach. LC-36 is on the southern end of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, just 5 miles from Port Canaveral. On a clear day, I’ve been able to spot the pad’s humongous lightning towers as far away as South Patrick Shores or Satellite Beach!
With the hardware now at the pad, Blue Origin says its next step before launch is to put the first and second stages together for a hot fire dress rehearsal.
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👋 Here’s a little bit more about me.
Little did I know when watching Apollo 13 in the third grade that 20 years later, I was destined for a thrilling career as your Space Coast multimedia journalist.
Chemistry and biology weren’t so interesting to me in high school science, but I loved my Earth and Space class (Thanks, Mr. Lang).
Then in 2016, I traded Capitol correspondent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for space correspondent. I’m proud that my first live report at News 6 happened to be the first time SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 booster on a barge. What seems so routine now was a really big deal that day in our newsroom!
From there, I’ve covered the Commercial Crew program and the return of human spaceflight to Kennedy Space Center (Demo-2 launched on my 33rd birthday!)
Now, as our coverage looks forward to missions to the moon and Mars, I often tell others I have the best job in local news. Because after all I’ve seen so far, I think I would be bored working somewhere else. I even bought a house near the Cape with a great view to the north so I never miss a launch even when I’m not working.
After eight years on the beat, though, I still consider myself a young space reporter and I always look forward to learning something new with every assignment.
Have a great launch into the rest of your week!