Overview
- Blue Origin’s heavy‑lift launcher carried NASA’s twin ESCAPADE probes from Cape Canaveral and achieved its first barge touchdown on the recovery vessel Jacklyn.
- January’s inaugural New Glenn flight missed a booster recovery due to an engine reignition issue, making this clean landing a pivotal validation of reusability.
- ESCAPADE will loiter at the Earth–Sun L2 point, perform an Earth flyby in late 2026, and target Martian orbit in September 2027 to study atmospheric escape and the magnetosphere as a low‑cost SIMPLEx mission.
- The U.S. Space Force says New Glenn is in the final phase of National Security Space Launch certification review, aligned with a Phase 3 Lane 2 award that could yield missions starting in fiscal 2026.
- Blue Origin’s near‑term lineup includes a Blue Moon Mark 1 Pathfinder lunar lander targeted for January 2026, satellite‑deployment demonstrations, and the first Amazon Leo batches planned for mid‑2026.