Blue Origin successfully launched its 321-foot-tall New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday afternoon.
The aerospace company also successfully recovered the rocket’s first stage booster on Blue Origin’s ship, Jacklyn, that was out in the Atlantic Ocean during the launch. The booster has the capability of being reused for 25 launches. Earlier this year during New Glenn’s first launch, the booster was not recovered.
Recovering the booster is a big step for Blue Origin. Its competitor SpaceX has also been able to recover the giant booster of its massive Starship vehicle.
The rocket’s payload was NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, or Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, set to Mars. The twin ESCAPADE satellites, named Blue and Gold, will study the planet’s magnetosphere and solar winds.
This could help scientists understand why Mars is inhabitable and why the planet lost its atmosphere.
Blue and Gold successfully deployed, but they have to wait for Mars and Earth to align before actually reaching the red planet in 2027.
