A successful second launch, accompanied by its first recovery of a reusable booster, moves the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket forward on its path toward National Security Space Launch (NSSL) certification.
The November 2025 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida deployed payloads for NASA that will help prepare the agency for Mars exploration and carried out testing of telemetry for Viasat, the satellite broadband company based in Carlsbad, California. Blue Origin, owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and based in the Seattle area, joined SpaceX as launch companies that have landed a reusable booster on an ocean platform.
Blue Origin is working with the U.S. Space Force on the final stages of certification to carry out critical national security missions for the Pentagon and for the National Reconnaissance Office. The two-stage New Glenn launcher made its first certification flight in January 2025. The company already has been awarded NSSL contracts as a future heavy-lift provider. SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance also have received NSSL certification.
At nearly 100 meters tall, New Glenn — named for the late astronaut and senator John Glenn — is one of the largest launch vehicles ever built. Its first stage is designed to be reused 25 times — as company Vice President Jordan Charles said, “launch, land, repeat, again and again.”