Jeff Bezos prepares new rocket launch to rival SpaceX

This handout photo courtesy of Blue Origin shows the New Glenn rocket on the launch pad at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on December 27, 2024. HANDOUT / AFP

The start of the new year will be spectacular for space, with the scheduled launches of two giant American rockets: the New Glenn from Blue Origin, the company founded by Jeff Bezos, and the Starship from SpaceX, created by Elon Musk. The scheduled launches, which will happen at the earliest on Sunday, January 12, and Monday, January 13 respectively, illustrate the billionaires’ ambitions in the sector and the competition they have been waging for almost a quarter of a century, Blue Origin having been founded in 2000 and SpaceX in 2002.

The New Glenn rocket is set to make its maiden flight. Departing from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the 98-meter-high reusable launcher will carry the Blue Ring Pathfinder, which is expected to remain in orbit. Funded by the Department of Defense, the prototype platform will test the capabilities of the flight systems that will equip future point-to-point transfer vehicles in space. The first stage of the rocket should return to land in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Jacklyn barge, named after Bezos’ mother.

Then it is Starship’s turn for its seventh test. Taking off from Boca Chica, Texas, the 120-meter rocket will carry replicas of Starlink satellites into orbit. In theory, the first stage should return to its launch pad and the second stage should land in the Indian Ocean. This launcher – the world’s largest – will be capable of carrying up to 150 metric tons of payload into low-Earth orbit, between 200 and 500 kilometers from the Earth, three times more than New Glenn and almost 10 times more than Ariane-6.

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