New Glenn booster lost during droneship landing attempt

On January 16, 2025, Blue Origin successfully launched the New Glenn space vehicle from Florida but lost the booster while returning to Earth and landing attempt on a droneship.

This was the first flight for New Glenn and the company has aimed to reach the orbit as a primary objective. Therefore, other achievements could have been complimentary including the booster’s vertical landing.

The booster is equipped with seven BE-4 engines, generating more than 3.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. During this mission, the vehicle performed hot-staging and boostback for the first stage.

Blue Origin New Glenn Liftoff

It continues to get telemetry data for about 8 minutes in mission time. However, it went blank in the following phase, as it suggests that the booster had been lost in the process of landing on the droneship named Jacklyn stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The first stage is designed to achieve reusability, it aims to fly up to 25 times with refurbishment and improvements. Furthermore, the booster has six actuated legs that deploy as soon as it hits the final burn.

We’ve seen this maneuver demonstrated by SpaceX with each Falcon 9 mission. However, the latest technological achievements with the first mission will enable Blue Origin to explore the telemetry and flight data.

That’s how more upgrades could be made to the New Glenn and it will also help Blue Origin to get a success in landing the booster on a droneship.