The newest model in the Jeff Bezos rocket line now has a name: the New Glenn.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is meant to be reusable: after taking off and reaching space, it can return to Earth and land vertically on its boosters. It builds off the New Shepherd rocket and capsule, which launched and landed for the first time in November 2015.
The rocket – named for John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth – is meant to take astronauts into orbit and beyond. It will come in a two-stage and a three-stage variant, both of which will have recoverable boosters.
“New Glenn is designed to launch commercial satellites and to fly humans into space,” wrote Jeff Bezos in a statement. “The 3-stage variant – with its high specific impulse hydrogen upper stage – is capable of flying demanding beyond-LEO [low Earth orbit] missions.”
The rocket will be 7 metres in diameter and range between 82 and 95 metres tall. That makes it physically larger than any current rockets and nearly as big as the Saturn V rocket that took humans to the moon.
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