Blue Origin super rocket 'New Glenn' will fly for the first time next month...a heated space race

[Anchor]
Amazon's Jeff Bezos-led space company Blue Origin's mega-rocket "New Glenn" will fly for the first time next month.

The launch of the Mars rover, originally scheduled for this month, was postponed to next spring, but instead moved up the launch of the orbiter, which was scheduled for December, by a month.

This is reporter Lee Sung-kyu.

[Reporter]
A huge amount of steam is coming out of the rocket engine.

It is a two-stage engine combustion test of Blue Origin's super-large rocket 'New Glen'.

In this combustion test, the interaction between the two-stage engine and the ground control system was verified.The New Glen, which consists of two stages

, is a 98m-high, 7m-diameter super rocket that can carry about 45 tons of cargo in low-Earth orbit.

Developed as SpaceX's mega rocket Starship rival, it will fly for the first time next month after twists and turns.

The payload is an orbital carrier 'Blue Ring' that carries fuel and cargo from low-Earth orbit to lunar orbit.

[Alison Karen / Blue Origin Researcher: Creating a path to space means building an infrastructure that accesses space more easily.]

In the first place, New Glenn's first voyage was Mars.

It was scheduled to launch this month with NASA's Mars exploration satellite on board, but NASA postponed the launch to next spring, saying the launch period was too short to make it difficult in case of emergency.

Blue Origin said it respected NASA's decision but could not slow down the launch of New Glenn and moved up the Blue Ring launch, which was originally scheduled for December, by a month.

The space industry predicts that if the launch of New Glenn is successful, the space competition between billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk will heat up.

[Lee Chang-jin / Member of the Korea Space Technology Promotion Association: New Glenn has a similar personality to Elon Musk's Starship for SpaceX.]

There are many views that say that huge influencers are competing in the space industry.

Both SpaceX and Blue Origin were previously selected for NASA's manned lunar landing project, Artemis Exploration.

SpaceX will participate in the Artemis 3 mission scheduled for 2026, and Blue Origin will participate in the Artemis 5 mission later, which is expected to intensify space competition in the future.

I'm Lee Sung Kyu of YTN Science.


Video editing: Kim Young-hwan

Graphic: Lee Na-young