New Glenn finally reused a booster on April 19, 2026. The same flight put a paying customer's satellite in the wrong orbit, and six weeks later a hot-fire at Cape Canaveral destroyed the next vehicle and wrecked the only pad.
That is the whole New Glenn story in November 2026: a heavy-lift rocket that has proven it can reach orbit, land, and fly a booster a second time, and a launch system that still cannot fly often enough to matter for the customers who booked it.
This full guide covers how New Glenn is built, what NG-1 through NG-3 did, how reuse compares with the 25-flight design goal, who is flying on it (especially Amazon Leo, the former Project Kuiper), how it stacks up against Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Starship and Vulcan, what is confirmed about New Glenn 9x4 and GS3, and the honest limits. Last updated: November 8, 2026.
Key Takeaways
- New Glenn stands more than 320 ft (98 m) tall with a 7-meter fairing. Blue Origin rates it at 45 metric tons to LEO and more than 13 metric tons to GTO.
- Seven BE-4 engines, each 640,000 lbf (2,846 kN) at sea level on LOX and LNG, power the first stage. Two restartable BE-3U engines, each 200,000 lbf (890 kN) vacuum, power the hydrogen upper stage.
- Three flights so far: NG-1 reached orbit on January 16, 2025, and lost its booster; NG-2 landed Never Tell Me The Odds on Jacklyn with NASA ESCAPADE on November 13, 2025; NG-3 reused that booster on April 19, 2026, but placed BlueBird 7 in an off-nominal orbit.
- CEO Dave Limp said the first refurbished booster replaced all seven engines. The first stage is designed for a minimum of 25 flights. Demonstrated reuse, as of November 2026, is one reflown booster.
- A May 28, 2026 hot-fire destroyed GS1-3 and damaged LC-36, days before a planned 48-satellite Amazon Leo launch. CNBC reported in November 2026 that return to flight slipped to January 2027.
How New Glenn is built
New Glenn is Blue Origin's two-stage, partially reusable heavy-lift rocket, named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. The current flying configuration is the 7x2: seven BE-4 engines on the first stage and two BE-3U engines on the second. Blue Origin publishes the stack at more than 320 ft (98 m) tall.
Blue Origin sells one 7x2 configuration for many destinations, rather than a menu of strap-on solids. The open question is whether a methalox booster plus a hydrolox upper stage can cover both constellation drops and high-energy missions without a third stage. As of November 2026, the company is adding that third stage anyway.
GS1, the reusable first stage
GS1 is Glenn Stage 1, the booster Blue Origin wants to treat like an airliner. It burns liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas in seven BE-4 engines. BE-4 is Blue Origin's oxygen-rich staged-combustion booster engine. The current New Glenn page lists each engine at 640,000 lbf (2,846 kN) of sea-level thrust with deep-throttle capability.
That rating is new. In a November 20, 2025 update, Blue Origin said total BE-4 thrust was rising from 3.9 million lbf (17,219 kN) to 4.5 million lbf (19,928 kN) as subcooling moved each engine from 550,000 lbf toward 640,000 lbf. The product page now publishes the higher figure. ULA still lists each Vulcan BE-4 at 550,000 lbs sea-level, so treat those as different operating points of the same engine family.
Descent hardware sits on GS1. Blue Origin describes four actuated fins for attitude control, strakes for lift and cross-range, and six hydraulically actuated landing legs. The booster is supposed to fly itself to a platform 620 miles (1,000 km) downrange.
GS2 and the BE-3U upper stage
GS2 is Glenn Stage 2, the expendable upper stage on every flight so far. It burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in two BE-3U engines. BE-3U is the vacuum-optimized version of the BE-3 family that already flies on New Shepard as BE-3PM. Each BE-3U produces 200,000 lbf (890 kN) of vacuum thrust and can restart in space, which is how New Glenn claims direct injection to high-energy orbits.
A November 2025 upgrade note said combined BE-3U thrust was moving from 320,000 lbf (1,423 kN) to 400,000 lbf (1,779 kN), and that the engine had already demonstrated 211,658 lbf on the stand. The live product page now matches that pair. Hydrolox is the high-energy choice. It is also the colder propellant, which matters once a cryogenic leak appears in a mishap report.
Fairing, factory and Launch Complex 36
The payload fairing is 7 meters across. Blue Origin says that is twice the volume of a typical 5-meter-class fairing, which is the real selling point for stacking large satellites or a batch of constellation spacecraft. A November 2025 upgrade note also promised a reusable fairing, a lower-cost tank design, and a more reusable thermal protection system, phased in beginning with NG-3.
New Glenn is built, stacked, launched and refurbished inside a 9-mile (14 km) radius on Florida's Space Coast, from a factory in Exploration Park to Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Blue Origin says it rebuilt the pad from the ground up for more than $1 billion, finishing in 2021. After May 2026, that single-pad setup stopped being a footnote.
Flight history through November 2026
New Glenn has attempted three orbital missions. That is the entire demonstrated record as of November 8, 2026. No flight has left LC-36 since April.
| Mission | Date | Payload | Booster | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG-1 | January 16, 2025 | Blue Ring Pathfinder | So You're Telling Me There's a Chance | Reached intended orbit; booster lost on descent |
| NG-2 | November 13, 2025 | NASA ESCAPADE twin spacecraft | Never Tell Me The Odds | Full mission success; first GS1 landing on Jacklyn |
| NG-3 | April 19, 2026 | AST SpaceMobile BlueBird 7 | Never Tell Me The Odds (first reuse) | Booster landed again; payload in off-nominal orbit |
| GS1-3 hot-fire | May 28, 2026 | Planned Amazon Leo flight (sats not onboard) | GS1-3 | Vehicle destroyed; LC-36 damaged |
Source: Blue Origin NG-1, NG-2, NG-3 and GS1-3 pages; TechCrunch and Spaceflight Now for the orbit and explosion details those pages do not spell out.
NG-1: orbit on the first try, no landing
NG-1 lifted off at 2:03 a.m. EST on January 16, 2025, from LC-36. The Blue Ring Pathfinder reached its intended orbit after two BE-3U burns and began returning data. Blue Origin lost the booster, named So You're Telling Me There's a Chance, during descent. Limp called orbit the primary objective and landing on try one ambitious. The flight was also framed as the first National Security Space Launch certification attempt, with the Pathfinder testing Blue Ring systems for a Defense Innovation Unit prototype effort.
NG-2: ESCAPADE and the first Jacklyn landing
NG-2 flew on November 13, 2025, at 3:55 p.m. EST. It deployed NASA's Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, twin Rocket Lab spacecraft, into a designated loiter orbit and landed the first stage on Jacklyn, Blue Origin's downrange landing platform.
NASA's own account matches the timeline. ESCAPADE will loiter near Earth, then use a late-2026 flyby toward Mars. The same flight carried a Viasat HaloNet demonstration for NASA's Communications Services Project. Limp named the booster Never Tell Me The Odds and called it the largest booster ever landed on a second try.
NG-3: first reuse, wrong orbit
NG-3 lifted off on Sunday, April 19, 2026, again from LC-36. The official mission page says the booster headed for Jacklyn while the two BE-3Us pushed BlueBird 7 toward low Earth orbit, after which GS2 would be disposed in a controlled ocean reentry.
The booster did its job. BlueBird 7 did not end up where the customer needed it. AST SpaceMobile said the satellite separated and powered on in an orbit lower than planned, too low to sustain operations, and that it would have to be deorbited. The loss was covered by insurance. Limp wrote that one upper-stage engine did not produce enough thrust to reach the target orbit.
The FAA later accepted Blue Origin's mishap investigation. Spaceflight Now quoted the agency: a cryogenic leak froze a hydraulic line and caused a thrust anomaly during the second-stage engine burn. Blue Origin identified nine corrective actions. The FAA said it would verify those changes before the next licensed flight.
The May 28 hot-fire and the long pause
On May 28, 2026, Blue Origin ran a hot-fire at LC-36 and reported an anomaly, with all personnel accounted for. Spaceflight Now said the rocket erupted around 9 p.m. EDT, destroying the vehicle that had been preparing for a launch as soon as June 4: the first Amazon Leo flight, with 48 satellites still at the payload processing site.
Later company updates were specific. By June 1 the propellant farm and water tower looked intact, the support tower was damaged but repairable in place, and Never Tell Me The Odds plus three GS2s in the integration facility looked healthy. On August 5 Blue Origin said the anomaly started at the main oxygen valve on one BE-4, with a small retrofit planned for existing engines.
Return to flight did not happen in 2026. In a memo reported by CNBC in early November, Limp said the target had moved to January 2027 after weather and rebuild delays. He had earlier told CNBC that first analysis pointed to mid-2028, a timeline the company refused to accept.
Booster reuse: Jacklyn, new engines and the 25-flight design
Blue Origin's public reuse claim is simple. New Glenn's first stage is designed for a minimum of 25 flights. The demonstrated number, as of November 2026, is two landings and one reflight, all on a single booster: Never Tell Me The Odds.
Jacklyn is the hardware that makes that loop possible. It is a landing platform 620 miles (1,000 km) downrange on the product page, and it is the only recovery mode Blue Origin has shown. No shoreline landing pad has been announced.
The first reflown booster did not reuse its engines
Reuse in April 2026 did not mean flying the same seven BE-4s again. Ahead of NG-3, Limp said Blue Origin had replaced all seven engines on the first refurbished booster to test upgrades, including thermal protection on one nozzle, and planned to use the NG-2 engines later. That is structural reuse, not airline-like engine-in-place turnaround. AST SpaceMobile's Abel Avellan told investors in March 2026 he expected reuse every 30 days. NG-2 to NG-3 was about five months, and then the pad went away.
Customers and payloads, especially Amazon Leo
Blue Origin lists Amazon Leo, NASA and AST SpaceMobile as headline customers on the New Glenn page. The NG-1 and NG-2 recaps also named several telecom operators and said the vehicle was in National Security Space Launch certification. Future flights are supposed to carry Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo and Mark 2 crewed landers for NASA's Artemis program.
Amazon Leo is not Blue Origin, and it is not called Kuiper anymore
Amazon Leo is the satellite broadband network Amazon spent years calling Project Kuiper. Amazon renamed the program on November 13, 2025. It sits inside Amazon's Devices and Services organization, not inside Blue Origin, even though Jeff Bezos founded both companies. Inside Deep Tech's Amazon Leo full guide covers the constellation, terminals, FCC deadline and the launch backlog across five rockets.
The launch relationship is a customer contract, not vertical integration. In April 2022 Blue Origin said Amazon selected New Glenn for 12 launches, with options for up to 15 more, against a constellation then described as 3,236 satellites. Amazon called the combined Arianespace, Blue Origin and ULA deal up to 83 launches. By 2026 the New Glenn piece was being reported as 24 flights, with 48 satellites on the first mission, LN-01. That flight was days away when GS1-3 exploded. No Amazon Leo mission has flown on New Glenn as of November 8, 2026.
AST SpaceMobile and NASA
AST SpaceMobile is building a space-based cellular network aimed at unmodified phones. NG-3 carried one Block 2 satellite, BlueBird 7. Spaceflight Now reported later New Glenn missions could loft up to eight of those satellites. After the wrong-orbit deployment, AST said it still expected to launch 45 more satellites by the end of 2026, using more than one provider.
NASA is the customer that got a clean mission. ESCAPADE is a heliophysics flight to study how the solar wind strips Mars' atmosphere, led by UC Berkeley with spacecraft from Rocket Lab, launched under NASA's Launch Services Program. It is also useful rehearsal: NASA has said every New Glenn flight provides data the agency will need when Blue Moon Mark 1 flies.
How New Glenn compares with Falcon, Starship and Vulcan
New Glenn sits in the middle: larger than Falcon 9, close to Falcon Heavy on advertised LEO mass, far below Starship V3's reusable target, and unique here for pairing a methalox booster with a hydrolox upper stage. The table uses only manufacturer figures. Reuse status is what has been shown as of November 2026, not brochure life.
| Vehicle | Height | Fairing | LEO payload | High-energy payload | First-stage engines | Reuse as of Nov 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Glenn 7x2 | More than 320 ft / 98 m | 7 m | 45 t | More than 13 t to GTO | 7 BE-4 (LOX/LNG) | 1 booster reflown (NG-3); designed for 25 flights |
| Falcon 9 | 70 m | 5.2 m | 22,800 kg | 8,300 kg to GTO | 9 Merlin (LOX/RP-1) | Operational booster reflight; first orbital-class reusable rocket |
| Falcon Heavy | 70 m | 5.2 m | 63,800 kg | 26,700 kg to GTO | 27 Merlin across 3 cores | Three reusable Falcon 9-class cores |
| Starship V3 | 124 m | 9 m ship diameter | 100+ t, fully reusable target | Not a GTO-class listing | 33 Raptor (methalox) on Super Heavy | Reached orbit on Flight 14; neither stage caught yet (see IDT guide) |
| Vulcan Centaur | Not used here | 5.4 m | Up to 27,200 kg LEO-ref (6 solids) | Up to 14,500 kg GTO (6 solids) | 2 BE-4 at 550,000 lbs each | Expendable booster |
Source: Blue Origin New Glenn; SpaceX Falcon 9; SpaceX Falcon Heavy; SpaceX Starship; ULA Vulcan. Starship reuse detail is summarized in Inside Deep Tech's Starship V3 full guide.
Against Falcon 9, New Glenn offers more mass and a much larger fairing, which is why later reporting put 48 Leo satellites on a New Glenn flight. Against Falcon Heavy, advertised LEO mass is lower (45 t versus 63,800 kg) while the fairing is larger, so volume-limited payloads can prefer New Glenn. Against Starship V3 the gap is architectural: Starship targets 100+ tonnes with both stages reused, while New Glenn reuses only GS1. Against Vulcan, both rockets use BE-4s; Vulcan expends the booster and New Glenn tries to land it. For the wider market, see Inside Deep Tech's 7 space tech trends and the space tech investment guide.
New Glenn 9x4 and GS3: what is confirmed
New Glenn 9x4 is the next variant, named for nine BE-4s on the first stage and four BE-3Us on the second. Blue Origin announced it on November 20, 2025, a week after NG-2, and says 9x4 and the current 7x2 will serve the market at the same time.
Published 9x4 targets are more than 70 metric tons to LEO, more than 14 metric tons direct to geosynchronous orbit, more than 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection, and an 8.7-meter fairing. Those are official design numbers, not a flown configuration. After the May explosion, Limp said the company would not skip ahead to 9x4 and would keep building 7x2 stages.
GS3, the new third stage
On November 5, 2026, Blue Origin introduced GS3, a kick stage for direct GEO injection and Earth-escape trajectories. It is already under contract for a government cislunar mission in 2028. Blue Origin says GS3 is not required for its lunar lander architecture.
Published GS3 performance is up to 14 metric tons to GEO and 20 metric tons to TLI on 9x4, and up to 8 metric tons to GEO and 10 metric tons to TLI on 7x2. The stage uses the same adapters and fairing as the two-stage stack and sits inside an interstage. It is powered by Blue Origin's BE-7 engine, also used on Blue Moon landers, at better than 460 seconds of vacuum specific impulse on GS3 profiles.
Hardware work has started. Blue Origin says a composite liquid hydrogen tank at Launch Site One in Texas held 100% of maximum expected operating pressure for 2.5 hours and 150% of that pressure for 10 minutes. The company expects this to be the first composite LH2 tank flown in space. That is a ground test, not a flown stage.
Honest limits of New Glenn
The limits as of November 2026 are not subtle.
- Cadence. Three orbital flights from January 2025 through April 2026, then none through November 8, 2026.
- Single pad. LC-36 is the only orbital site, and the May 28 hot-fire took it offline. Blue Origin is moving to a horizontal-to-vertical hybrid at 36A, which Limp said should raise cadence, but the pad is still the bottleneck.
- Upper-stage reliability. NG-3 failed on a GS2 thrust anomaly. A landed booster does not help if the payload ends up too low to operate.
- Reuse is thin. Designed for 25 flights, demonstrated once, with a full engine swap before the reflight. GS2 is still expendable.
- 9x4 and GS3 are announced products. The 70-ton LEO and 14-ton GEO figures are brochure performance, not flight heritage.
- Amazon Leo needs this rocket and cannot wait. The Leo guide tracks the FCC 2029 deadline and a backlog that still sits mostly on New Glenn and Vulcan.
FAQ
What is New Glenn?
New Glenn is Blue Origin's heavy-lift, partially reusable orbital rocket. The current 7x2 uses seven BE-4 methalox engines on GS1 and two BE-3U hydrolox engines on GS2. Blue Origin publishes more than 320 ft (98 m) of height, a 7-meter fairing, 45 metric tons to LEO and more than 13 metric tons to GTO.
How many times has New Glenn flown?
Did New Glenn successfully reuse a booster?
Yes, with an asterisk. Never Tell Me The Odds flew on NG-2, landed on Jacklyn, and flew again on NG-3. Limp said Blue Origin replaced all seven engines before that reflight. The NG-3 payload did not reach a usable orbit.
What is New Glenn 9x4?
It is the next variant, named for nine BE-4s and four BE-3Us. Blue Origin lists more than 70 metric tons to LEO, more than 14 metric tons direct to GEO, more than 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection, and an 8.7-meter fairing. It has not flown. The company says 9x4 and 7x2 will operate together.
When will New Glenn launch Amazon Leo satellites?
Not before return to flight. The first Leo mission was being prepared for early June 2026 with 48 satellites when the May 28 hot-fire destroyed GS1-3. The satellites were not on the rocket. CNBC reported in November 2026 a January 2027 target. Amazon Leo is the renamed Project Kuiper program, an Amazon constellation rather than a Blue Origin product. See the Amazon Leo full guide.
How does New Glenn compare with Falcon Heavy and Starship?
Blue Origin rates New Glenn at 45 t to LEO and more than 13 t to GTO, with a 7-meter fairing. SpaceX lists Falcon Heavy at 63,800 kg to LEO and 26,700 kg to GTO, and Starship V3 at 100+ t fully reusable. New Glenn has reused one booster once. Starship V3 reached orbit in September 2026 but had not caught either stage as of the Starship V3 guide.
What to watch next
The next year decides whether New Glenn becomes a schedule constellation planners can use, or stays a three-flight vehicle with a long repair bill.
- Return to flight in January 2027, the date CNBC reported from Limp's November memo, and whether that flight is Blue Ring, Amazon Leo or something else.
- The first Amazon Leo launch on New Glenn (LN-01, 48 satellites).
- A third flight of Never Tell Me The Odds, or any GS1 that flies again without a full engine swap.
- GS2 performance after the cryogenic-leak fixes. Another off-nominal upper-stage burn would erase the reuse headline.
- Whether 7x2 returns first, as Limp said, or 9x4 and GS3 move faster in marketing than on the pad.
If the question is the constellation those launches are meant to build, stay with the Amazon Leo guide. If the question is the vehicle trying to change the cost curve faster, read the Starship V3 guide.
New Glenn has crossed the line from brochure to flight hardware. The next line is cadence, and that clock starts only after LC-36 flies a rocket that both lands and delivers.
