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After days of delays, Blue Origin's towering New Glenn rocket thundered into the skies above Florida once again.
The mission, which Blue Origin refers to as NG-2, was the spacecraft's second-ever launch following its debut earlier in January. But it was also New Glenn's first mission for paying customers.
Hitching a ride aboard the powerful two-stage vehicle were twin NASA satellites now making a voyage to Mars in a landmark mission to pave the way for the first humans to reach the red planet. What's more, in a major test for Blue Origin's massive rocket, the spacecraft's booster also succeeded in returning for a landing on a barge stationed off the shores of Florida.
Officials with Blue Origin and NASA alike hailed the launch as a major step forward for billionaire Jeff Bezos' space technology company, which aims to compete with fellow billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX – a dominant force in the commercial rocket launch service industry.
New Glenn managed to get off the ground Thursday, Nov. 13, after two previous postponements – the first for poor weather in Florida, and the second due to a massive solar storm that also unleashed views of the northern lights across the United States.
Here's everything to know about the second launch in 2025 of the New Glenn, one of the largest active rockets in the United States.
Blue Origin launches New Glenn for 2nd time ever from Florida
The New Glenn rocket got off the ground at 3:55 p.m. ET Thursday, Nov. 13 – about an hour after its launch window first opened – from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Base. The site is one that Blue Origin invested $1 billion to rebuild.
The launch came after two previous delays.
Blue Origin, which Bezos founded in 2000, was initially working toward a launch Nov. 9 before impeding cloud cover rolling into the area foiled that attempt. Powerful bursts of energy from the sun causing a solar storm that threatened technology prompted the company to postpone another attempt set for Wednesday, Nov. 12.
“We achieved full mission success today, and I am so proud of the team,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said in a statement.
First stage booster lands on drone ship 'Jacklyn'
About 10 minutes after liftoff, Blue Origin completed a major first: landing New Glenn's first stage booster on the deck of a drone ship, named Jacklyn in honor of Bezos' mother, several hundred miles offshore in the Atlantic.
The feat, a video of which Bezos shared in a post on X, involved reigniting three of the booster's seven BE-4 engines to slow the vehicle down so it could deploy six landing legs for a gentle touchdown.
The maneuver is one SpaceX pioneered and now routinely pulls off during missions involving rockets from its Falcon family. But Blue Origin officials claimed its 188-foot-booster, nicknamed Never Tell Me the Odds, is now the largest to complete such a landing.
"Never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try," Limp continued in his statement.
Blue Origin says it designed its boosters – which provides the initial burst of thrust at liftoff – to last for at least 25 flights.
But while the company attempted to land a booster during New Glenn's maiden flight Jan. 16, 2025, the first stage was lost during the descent. Still, because the upper stage reached orbit in the debut, Blue Origin regarded that mission as a success.
NASA ESCAPADE satellites on way to Mars
For Blue Origin, the mission was referred to as NG-2. But for NASA, the launch of the New Glenn rocket helped commence the U.S. space agency's ESCAPADE mission to Mars.
After stage separation, the upper stage vehicle – operating with two of the company's BE-3U engines designed for the vacuum of space – carried the payload fairing in orbit with NASA's twin ESCAPADE satellites.
The ESCAPADE satellites – short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration Dynamics Explorers – eventually separated from the spacecraft to continue on their own independent journey after ground controllers established communications by 10:35 p.m. ET.
The satellites, built by California aerospace company Rocket Lab, are due to arrive in Martian orbit in September 2027. The science mission itself, which is led by the University of California, Berkeley, will then take place from June 2028 to May 2029, according to NASA.
The ESCAPADE satellites will orbit the red planet and take simultaneous observations of solar winds and space weather. The mission comes as NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the surface of the moon – potentially during President Donald Trump's second term – ahead of the first human expeditions to the red planet.
In a post on X, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy called the mission "another milestone for (Trump's) promise that America will lead the world in space exploration"
"ESCAPADE puts America one step closer to walking on Mars," Duffy, also the U.S. transportation secretary, said in a follow-up post.
New Glenn additionally carried technology from telecommunications company Viasat that could be used for NASA missions in low-Earth orbit.
What is Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket? Here's what's next
Named in honor of NASA astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, New Glenn is a powerful two-stage heavy-lift launch vehicle manufactured by Blue Origin.
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket stands at 322 feet tall, making it comparable in size to NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) developed for the Artemis moon campaign. SpaceX's Starship, though, which is approximately 400 feet tall, is still regarded as the largest rocket in the world.
Blue Origin envisions that New Glenn will be capable of shuttling Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites to low-Earth orbit and undertaking other missions for paying customers – including NASA and telecommunications providers. The spacecraft could also prove critical in future human missions to the moon.
Even now, the New Glenn program has several vehicles in production and commercial missions being planned for years, Blue Origin said.
"This is just the beginning as we rapidly scale our flight cadence and continue delivering for our customers," Limp said in his statement.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Blue Origin launches New Glenn rocket on NASA Mars mission. Here's a recap
Reporting by Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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