With a pair of major launches from competing vendors Jan. 16, the Space Force got a glimpse of how it may access space in the future—along with reminders that it may take a little while to get there.
First, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket made its maiden launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, Fla., in the early morning hours.
Space Launch Delta 45 supported the first flight of the 320-foot rocket, which ended with the upper stage successfully reaching medium-Earth orbit and releasing its payload, a spacecraft called Blue Ring.
In a release, SLD 45 confirmed that New Glenn’s first launch will count toward its certification process for the National Security Space Launch program. NSSL is responsible for putting the government’s most important military and intelligence satellites into orbit, and rockets must have two successful launches before they can be certified as part of the program.
Right now, only one company has an NSSL-certified vehicle: SpaceX, which has come to dominate the launch market and sparked some concern about a lack of competition. SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk is also close to President-elect Donald Trump.
New Glenn’s successful launch and first step toward certification raises hopes of more competition. At last month’s Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Fla., U.S. Space Command boss Gen. Stephen N. Whiting made it clear he wanted to see New Glenn get going, as well as United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket, which is still awaiting certification.
“That’s an important capability for the nation,” he said. “So we’re eager to see those come online.”
Both Blue Origin and ULA have been tapped to participate in “Phase 3” of NSSL, but until their rockets are certified, they can’t actually fly those missions. That’s already led to delays for payloads that were tasked to ULA for Phase 2.
In addition to the rocket, the payload for Blue Origin’s launch also carried implications for the Space Force. Blue Ring is meant to provide “in-space logistics and delivery”—capabilities that will be crucial for the service’s plans to develop satellites that can maneuver in space and be refueled instead of simply “dying” when they run out.
Blue Origin has already reached an agreement with the Defense Innovation Unit to test Blue Ring in a future mission, and the first spacecraft in orbit now could give the Space Force an idea of how the system may be best used in the future.
The lone blemish on the successful Blue Origin launch was the failure to land the first-stage booster for reuse later, though company officials and observers have noted that doing so on the first flight was an ambitious goal.
Reusability is key to driving launch costs down, and SpaceX has made it the company’s calling card after years of trial and error in the early 2010s with its Falcon 9 rocket.
Just a few hours after the New Glenn launch, SpaceX conducted the seventh test flight of its own massive rocket, Starship. The results were mixed: the booster stage of the rocket successfully returned to Earth and was caught by a giant pair of mechanical “chopsticks,” but the upper stage exploded after separation, never reaching orbit.
Like New Glenn, Starship figures prominently in the Space Force’s future plans. Standing about 400 feet tall, it is the tallest rocket ever and can hold payloads of 100-150 tons.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman was on hand to watch a previous Starship test, and the Air Force Research Laboratory awarded SpaceX a $102 million contract in 2022 to study how Starship could be used for the Space Force’s “Rocket Cargo” initiative. Rocket Cargo is one of the service’s “Vanguard” initiatives, with the goal of moving a C-17’s worth of supplies or personnel anywhere in the world on rapid timelines without the overflight risk.
That idea is still being considered, Space Systems Command boss Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant told reporters in November.
“We are thinking about how we might use it. We think the first, most logical, given the payload volume … would be some type of rocket cargo delivery mechanism,” Garrant said during a roundtable hosted by the Defense Writers Group. “Absolutely interested in the potential military utility and definitely following their progress.”
However, the Starship vehicle that would carry that cargo is part of the rocket that exploded during this most recent test—highlighting the work still left to do to make it viable for the Pentagon.