Blue Origin has test fired its New Glenn rocket engine as it makes final preparations for the launch of NASA’s ESCAPADE mission involving twin Mars orbiters.
The static test fire of the heavy-lift rocket, captured by NASASpaceflight and shared below, lasted around 40 seconds and appeared to proceed without a hitch.
Blur Origin engineers will now be poring over the data in search of any anomalies. If everything’s in the clear, the rocket, on only its second-ever flight, could launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida as early as Sunday, November 9.
The New Glenn lifted off for the first time in January this year when it deployed a test payload for orbit-to-Earth communications. Footage of the launch showed the 98-meter-tall rocket leaving the launchpad, powered by seven BE-4 engines creating nearly four million pounds of thrust.
While the rocket performed as expected during its ascent, Blue Origin failed to land the returning first-stage booster on a droneship in the ocean as planned.
The company will try again in the upcoming mission, with engineers having implemented a number of updates to the landing system to improve the booster’s chance of a successful landing.
Bringing home the booster in a similar way to how SpaceX lands the first stage of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket allows for rapid reuse, drastically cutting the cost of spaceflight and thereby opening up space access to more companies and organizations.
NASA’s upcoming ESCAPADE mission, meanwhile, will use two identical spacecraft to explore how the solar wind interacts with Mars’ magnetic environment, and how this interaction causes Mars’ atmosphere to leak into space. The research could answer fundamental questions about Mars’ past and present habitability, and may also provide valuable information for future human missions to the red planet by identifying radiation risks and other potential challenges.
There’s much excitement around the launch as it’s the first dedicated Mars mission since 2020 when NASA sent its Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter to the distant planet, although no landing is involved this time around.
