Potential New Glenn flight hardware in the wild
In a recent fly over of Florida’s Space Coast, NASASpaceflight photographer Max Evans, snapped a photo of what looks to be flight hardware for Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. It sported a clean coat of paint with Blue Origin’s logo and name as well as “New Glenn” written across it.
Blue Origin operates a rocket factory for its New Glenn vehicle just outside NASA Kennedy Space Center‘s gates, but still on property, at Exploration Park. For years the building has remained visible for almost anywhere inside KSC’s Visitor Complex but very little is shared by the aerospace company as the current state of New Glenn’s development inside.
If this is the first piece flight hardware, then it would be a major milestone in New Glenn’s development. Space Explored requested a comment from Blue Origin but has yet to receive a response.
Blue Origin plans to take a major step on its first orbital launch attempt with a NASA mission to Mars called ESCAPADE. Before this, Blue Origin’s only flight experience has been sub-orbital flights with New Shepard.
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This hardware lines up with predictions
In September, Blue Origin’s VP of New Glenn, Jarrett Jones, stated the first flight vehicle should arrive at a integration facility by the end of the year.
So seeing this piece of hardware, which looks different from previous high fidelity mockups, lines up with having flight hardware by the end of the year. Now we have to ask, how much other hardware have we missed?
Most of the New Glenn is built at that facility in Florida, including the first stage, second stage, and fairings. The BE-4 and BE-3U engines that power the first and second stages are produced in Huntsville, Alabama near ULA‘s rocket factory.
It’s very possible that the hardware has slipped by, unseen by the media, behind NASA’s or the Space Force’s gates.
This section of New Glenn appears to just be the natural gas (methane) and oxygen fuel tanks and is missing the forward and after sections seen in renders and mockups of the rocket. We might not see any canards or fins on the first flight of New Glenn as we don’t expect Blue Origin to recover the first few rockets. But we will need to see the full first stage, second stage, and fairings ahead of next year’s launch.
Blue Origin is aiming to launch NASA’s ESCAPADE’s during next years Mars launch window, with a no earlier than date of August.
