Blue Origin is announcing propulsion improvements to its star rocket and plans for a larger “super-heavy class rocket” that will place the company in even closer competition with SpaceX following its most recent successful New Glenn mission.
According to Blue Origin, New Glenn will receive better engines in both stages, with the booster engines’ combined thrust rising from 3.9 million lbf to 4.5 million lbf. Meanwhile, the rocket’s upper stage’s total thrust is increasing from 320,000 lbf to 400,000 lbf. When combined with a new reusable fairing (the cover that covers New Glenn’s payload) and a “updated lower-cost tank design,” Blue Origin asserts that the upgraded rocket will help clients traveling to “low-Earth orbit, the Moon and beyond.”
The bigger sibling of the existing New Glenn 7×2, the New Glenn 9×4, is another rocket on the company’s plan. The New Glenn 9×4 can transport “over 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, over 14 metric tons direct to geosynchronous orbit and over 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection,” according to Blue Origin. It gets its name from the number of engines it has at each stage—nine on the booster stage and four on the upper stage. The rocket is larger than the Saturn V rocket that sent people to the Moon during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, according to a photo posted on X by Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp.
This puts Blue Origin in the same size range as SpaceX’s Starship, which is about to retire while SpaceX works on its next-generation model after successfully deploying its payload for the first time in August.
SpaceX and Blue Origin are vying with NASA to collaborate on upcoming Moon missions. Blue Origin apparently intends to place its unmanned lunar lander on the Moon in 2026, if the company’s lunar hunger wasn’t evident from the Moon’s prominent framing in its New Glenn press photos.
