Blue Origin has been a disappointment over the years. Although Jeff Bezos launched the company with the promise of providing cheaper space launch capabilities, the company seemingly languished while Elon Musk's Space-X blasted past it to the point that Space-X makes more launches than all other companies and countries combined. According to Ars Technica, "SpaceX has launched 86 percent of all the world’s payload mass over the 18 months from the beginning of 2024 through June 30 of this year."
When I visited the Kennedy Space Center earlier this year, however, there was a huge Blue Origin facility there, so I wondered if things were would change. And sure enough, earlier this week, Blue Origin not only successfully launched the two spacecraft ESCAPADE mission to Mars, but successfully landed its first stage on Blue Origin's recovery ship "Jacklyn," in the Atlantic Ocean, 375 miles (604 kilometers) downrange.
Blue Origin is now the second company in history to recover a rocket during an operational flight. This practice has become the norm for SpaceX, which has so mastered landing and reusing its Falcon 9 rocket that boosters launching for the first time are now a rarity.
"In addition to ESCAPADE," the article adds, "New Glenn carried a secondary payload for customer ViaSat to test that company's InRange launch telemetry relay service as part of a project for NASA's Communications Services Project (CSP)."
It's always good to see competition. Hopefully some of the other small space launch firms will also be successful.
The more the merrier!
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