Blue Origin eyes 3rd New Glenn rocket launch from Florida. What we know

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin looks to be on the cusp of launching its towering New Glenn rocket on its third-ever spaceflight.

The two-stage rocket is vertical on its launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as preparations are underway to get New Glenn off the ground once again. New Glenn, which is among the largest rockets in the world, is central to Bezos’ ambitions to compete with fellow billionaire Elon Musk and SpaceX in the commercial spaceflight market.

Standing more than 300 feet tall, New Glenn has already helped propel twin NASA satellites on their way to Mars and is next due to be the launch service provider for a broadband company’s satellites. And later in 2026, Blue Origin’s giant rocket could even send its own commercial lunar lander on an uncrewed voyage to the moon as NASA’s Artemis program heats up.

Here’s everything to know about New Glenn’s next launch on a mission Blue Origin refers to as NG-3.

When is Blue Origin’s next New Glenn rocket launch?

The New Glenn rocket has been vertical since April 13 on a launch pad in Florida as Blue Origin continues to tease that its third launch could be imminent. However, the company has not yet announced an official target launch date.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, does include the mission on its planning advisory as of April 15. According to the FAA, liftoff could be set for as early as 6:45 a.m. Friday, April 17, from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

What is NG-3? Here’s New Glenn’s next mission

Because the next launch will be New Glenn’s third-ever spaceflight since its January 2025 debut, Blue Origin refers to the mission as NG-3.

This time around, the rocket is due to help deliver to orbit broadband network satellites for AST SpaceMobile, a cellular broadband service provider. The Block 2 BlueBird satellite, with communication arrays as large as 2,400 square feet, would be the largest satellites ever commercially deployed in low-Earth orbit, AST SpaceMobile said in a press release.

Blue Origin to reuse booster, ‘Never Tell Me the Odds’

In a major milestone for Blue Origin, the company plans to reuse the 188-foot-tall first stage booster used on the previous launch in November, named “Never Tell Me the Odds.” Launching the booster, which provides the initial burst of thrust at liftoff, for a second time would be a pivotal step toward allowing New Glenn to launch more frequently.

The capability to recover and reuse boosters is one competitor SpaceX has also long perfected with its 230-foot Falcon 9 – the most active rocket in the world.

Blue Origin plans hot fire preflight test

Blue Origin is likely to announce a target launch date after conducting a preflight test known as a hot fire.

Scheduled for April 15, The test is a critical step before a launch that entails igniting and running the rocket’s engines while the spacecraft is vertical on a launch pad to ensure they are working properly – not unlike revving a car while it’s in park.

Does Jeff Bezos own Blue Origin?

Billionaire Jeff Bezos, best known for founding Amazon, founded the private space technology company Blue Origin in 2000.

Headquartered in Washington state, Blue Origin made a name for itself with its suborbital human spaceflights using its New Shepard spacecraft from West Texas. Those missions, several of which featured celebrities like musician Katy Perry and actor William Shatner, have been paused for at least two years, Blue Origin previously announced.

What is Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket?

Named in honor of NASA astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, New Glenn is a powerful two-stage rocket manufactured by Blue Origin classified as a heavy-lift launch vehicle.

Blue Origin envisions that New Glenn will be capable of shuttling both Amazon Leo satellites, formerly called Project Kuiper, and its separate TeraWave venture to a lower atmosphere called low-Earth orbit. Bezos also has plans for New Glenn to undertake other missions for paying customers – including NASA and telecommunications providers.

How tall is the New Glenn rocket?

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket stands at about 320 feet tall, making it one of the largest rockets in the world.

That includes a nearly 23-foot-wide fairing that is designed to carry cargo to orbit, which Blue Origin says on its website has “room for bigger constellations and larger payloads.” The rocket’s first stage is powered by seven of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines, while the upper stage, which flies in orbit, operates with two of the company’s BE-3U engines designed for the vacuum of space.

The first stage is also made to be reusable for at least 25 flights, according to Blue Origin.

New Glenn is comparable in size to NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) developed for the Artemis moon campaign. The rocket is also slightly smaller than NASA’s retired 363-foot Saturn V, the iconic three-stage heavy-lift rocket that was pivotal in the U.S. space agency’s historic Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

SpaceX’s Starship, though, which is approximately 400 feet tall, is now regarded as the largest rocket in the world.

Bigger New Glenn could be on the way

Following New Glenn’s previous spaceflight in November, Blue Origin announced that a bigger version of the rocket is on the way.

Standing nearly 400 feet tall, the height and power makes the new variant of the rocket a super-heavy class vehicle comparable to SpaceX’s Starship.

Dubbed New Glenn 9×4, the rocket is designed with nine engines that will power its first stage and four engines on its second stage – an increase of two engines for each stage compared to the current design.

Blue Origin expects the combined power of the nine first-stage engines to generate 50% more power at liftoff, or 5.7 million pounds of thrust. The four second-stage engines produce another 800,000 pounds of thrust after separation, according to the company.

New Glenn would launch Artemis lunar lander

Blue Origin and SpaceX are both developing lunar landers that could be used in future missions under NASA’s Artemis campaign to ferry astronauts from the moon’s orbit down to the surface.

Later in 2026, Blue Origin plans to use New Glenn to launch the uncrewed Mark 1 variant of its Blue Moon lander on a pathfinding mission to the moon’s south pole region.

The mission would come as Blue Origin and SpaceX both compete to have their landers ready in time for NASA’s Artemis III mission in 2027, which would be a critical test of each craft’s docking capabilities in Earth orbit.

New Glenn launches for 2nd time on NASA mission to Mars

The New Glenn rocket last got off the ground Nov. 13 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on a mission Blue Origin referred to as NG-2 that helped propel twin NASA ESCAPADE satellites on a journey to Mars. When the spacecraft reach Martian orbit, they are due to spend about a year orbiting the red planet to take simultaneous observations of solar winds and space weather.

The recent mission also saw Blue Origin complete a major first: landing New Glenn’s first stage booster on the deck of a drone ship, named Jacklyn in honor of Bezos’ late mother, several hundred miles offshore in the Atlantic. The maneuver was one Blue Origin failed to complete in New Glenn’s debut voyage on Jan. 16, 2025.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]. Subscribe to the free Florida TODAY newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin prepares to launch New Glenn rocket in Florida