New Glenn: How Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin aims to challenge Elon Musk’s SpaceX | CNN

Blue Origin's New Glenn is set to launch from Cape Canaveral as early as next week .

The rocket will be Blue Origin’s first attempt to send a rocket to orbit.

Blue Origin will seek to recover, refurbish and reuse first -stage rocket boosters to drive down costs.

New Glenn could one day power national security launches, haul Amazon satellites to space.

New Glenn could be instrumental in building Blue Origin’s planned space station, called Orbital Reef .

New Glenn is capable of carrying about double that mass, but may also be roughly the same price as a Falcon 9.

Blue Origin had planned to launch a pair of Mars -bound satellites on behalf of NASA for the first flight.

Now it’s much more of a mainstream idea (because of SpaceX). The difference is that it’s taken Blue Origin so much longer to get to orbit.” If successful, returning the New Glenn rocket booster for a safe landing will be a stunning feat. After expending most of its fuel to propel the rocket’s upper stage to space, the first -stage booster will need to make a clean separation. The booster must then maneuver with pinpoint guidance and reignite its engines with precision timing to avoid crashing into the ocean or the Jacklyn recovery platform..