Blue Origin unveils Northstar engine and a third stage to push New Glenn further

Blue Origin wants its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket to become cheaper to build and able to reach farther. At the UP.Summit conference in Florida on Thursday, chief executive Dave Limp presented two upgrades: a booster engine named Northstar and an optional third stage, GS3.

Northstar: more thrust, fewer parts

Northstar is meant to eventually take over from the BE-4 engines that power New Glenn’s booster today. According to Blue Origin, it uses half as many parts as the BE-4, weighs 30% less and raises thrust from 640,000 to 715,000 pounds-force. Roughly 65% of the engine can be 3D-printed, Limp said, and the company expects to build it for about 25% of the cost of a BE-4, eventually assembling one in less than a day.

The design keeps the same recipe as before, burning methane with liquid oxygen. Blue Origin says the program went from approval to test firings in 11 months, but it has not said when Northstar will first fly. BE-4 production will continue for United Launch Alliance, whose Vulcan rocket uses two of them.

GS3: straight to geostationary orbit

The new third stage runs on liquid hydrogen and oxygen and uses one BE-7 engine, the same type built for the company’s Blue Moon lunar lander. It is made mostly of composites to stay light and sits inside the interstage, so customers keep the full fairing volume.

With GS3, the standard 7×2 New Glenn could place 8 tonnes directly into geostationary orbit or send 10 tonnes toward the Moon. On the larger 9×4 version, those figures rise to 14 and 20 tonnes. A 5.5-meter composite hydrogen tank has already passed tests in Texas, holding full operating pressure for 2.5 hours and 150% of it for 10 minutes. An unnamed government customer has booked the first GS3 mission to cislunar space in 2028.

Big goals after a rough year

Limp said the long-term aim is to fly New Glenn more than 1,000 times a year. For now, the rocket has flown three times. Its April mission left AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite in the wrong orbit, and in May the vehicle exploded on the pad during an engine test. Its next launch is now expected in January 2027, The Verge reports, citing CNBC and the Financial Times.

Reported by Blue Origin (Northstar), Blue Origin (GS3), Ars Technica, Space.com, The Verge. Compiled with AI tools.