Blue Origin is currently gearing up its second New Glenn mission, NG-2, marking a significant milestone for the company as it targets Mars for the first time.
It will mark Blue Origin’s first mission with a customer payload, first interplanetary mission, and a second attempt at booster recovery.
Two small spacecraft particularly designed by Rocket Lab to study Mars’ magnetosphere.
The heavy-lift rocket is slated to lift off today, November 9 at 2:45 PM ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, NG-2 will carry NASA’s ESCAPADE mission.
Blue Origin New Glenn vice president of mission management Laura Maginnis stated, “We just completed our launch readiness review this morning. We are go for launch across the board.”
The twin satellites will show low-cost planetary exploration technologies.
In January, the New Glenn’s first flight successfully occurred, with the company hoping to to take another step toward booster reusability by landing the rocket’s first stage on the drone ship Jacklyn in the Atlantic ocean.
If the mission successfully ends, it would make Blue Origin only the second company to recover a reusable orbital booster at sea.
The NG-2 lift off hints towards the company’s readiness to outdo Elon-Musk owned SpaceX in both deep-space and reusable launch markets.
