Blue Origin revealed its plans for a rebuilt launch complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station after the explosion of a New Glenn rocket destroyed much of the pad in May.
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The Jeff Bezos company released video renderings of an updated launch tower design and new method for New Glenn to get ready for launch that includes rolling out to the pad horizontally, being raised into a vertical position by cranes and locked into place at the launch tower.
Only then will cranes place the payload for the mission atop the rocket.
This gets around the destruction of the transporter erector that took place during the May 28 explosion at Launch Complex 36 during a hot fire test that also destroyed the rocket and some of the support infrastructure including a lightning tower.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp posted an update on the recovery and rebuild efforts continuing to project a return to flight of New Glenn before the end of the year.
“We continue to actively investigate the cause of the anomaly. The vehicle is highly instrumented with extensive data from multiple camera angles and sensors, giving us confidence in our ability to identify and correct the root cause. Early analysis points to the aft section of the first stage,” he said.
He noted that other damage from the explosion took out some other features, but “we caught a lot of breaks, too, and intend to make the most of them.”
Recoverable infrastructure include a tank farm, the integration facility building adjacent the pad, the vehicle access tower and water tower.
Rocket hardware including the booster that has made two successful launches and landings and three upper stage rocket stages, survived the event as well and have been moved over to the Merritt Island rocket factory while pad reconstruction takes place.
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“To return to flight this year, we’re not rebuilding the same pad,” he said.
The company had already been planning a hybrid horizontal-to-vertical approach for a larger version of New Glenn that is being planned for the future at a second pad at Launch Complex 36.
Rebuilding the existing New Glenn pad for its current design using the same approach to launch just made sense, Limp said.
“We take our responsibility as a launch provider very seriously, and we are committed to returning to flight with the reliability our mission demands,” he said.
NASA for one has been invested in Blue Origin’s recovery efforts as New Glenn has major ties to its Artemis program and moon exploration plans. A version of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon MK2 lunar lander is supposed to fly as part of the Artemis III mission in mid 2027.
NASA is also waiting on Blue Origin to launch Blue Moon MK1, an uncrewed smaller version of the planned human-rated lander. That mission was aiming to launch and land on the moon’s south pole this year.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on Tuesday said he’s been impressed with the plan forward, and Blue Origin is on track to participate as originally planned if everything comes together.
“They are very committed to getting back in the business of launching New Glenn before the end of the year,” he said. “We’ve got time beyond that point into 2027 before we’re getting nervous.”
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