Blue Origin's move into heavy orbital launches.
New Glenn is Blue Origin's orbital launcher, distinct from the suborbital New Shepard system. Its name honours John Glenn, but does not mean that the astronaut flew aboard this rocket.
The first flight on 16 January 2025 reaches its intended orbit with the Blue Ring Pathfinder demonstrator. The attempt to recover the first stage fails during descent.
The second flight on 13 November 2025 deploys the two ESCAPADE probes into a loiter orbit and successfully returns the first stage to the Jacklyn platform. These results represent distinct development milestones.
Selected representative missions; crew names belong to the flight shown.
The inaugural launch successfully reaches orbit, but the booster is not recovered.
The robotic ESCAPADE probes are deployed and the first stage lands on an ocean platform.
Dates follow the days reported by the source agencies, generally in local time; the UTC day can differ. Crews belong to the selected missions, not every flight in the family.
New Glenn adds another reusable architecture to the transport of large payloads and scientific missions.
First flight or first test of the family, including unsuccessful or suborbital attempts.
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