Mockup of Blue Origin's New Glenn stands next to SpaceX's Falcon 9 at Port Canaveral
It wasn't a cruise ship causing a scene at Port Canaveral. Instead Thursday as people strolled to the port’s restaurants, out on the water was a sign the Space Coast is about to see even more rocket activity.
Parked directly next to the latest SpaceX first stage to come off a droneship, a "simulator" of Blue Origin’s New Glenn first stage made for a historical photo opportunity ? and gave a foreshadow of space activity to come.
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According to Blue Origin, this mock up rocket stage was used to test their first stage recovery process. A Blue Origin engineer told FLORIDA TODAY the "simulator" is called The Iron Bird.
Supported by a crane, the new white rocket "simulator" sat on land next to its smaller?sized competitor. The New Glenn rocket towers more than 320 feet high when fully stacked compared to Falcon 9 at 229.6 feet ? and the first stage is no exception. According to Blue Origin, New Glenn's first stage towers a whopping 200-feet.
Glancing at the two first stage rockets, New Glenn is also visibly wider than Falcon 9 ? which looked almost unrecognizable due to its space flight battle scars.
Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, New Glenn is Blue Origin's upcoming workhorse rocket which will carry payloads for Amazon's Project Kuiper, NASA, Telesat and Eutelsa.
Blue Origin, a private space company founded by former Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, hopes to launch their orbital New Glenn rocket for the first time by the end of the year. Like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, Blue Origin plans to reuse New Glenn's first stage. This method of reusability saves space companies resources and can lower launch expenses.
Port Canaveral spectators got a sneak peek of our recovery operations today as we demonstrated the process of transitioning New Glenn’s first stage from vertical to horizontal using our 200-foot-tall simulator. The operation validated our tooling and procedures for recovering our… pic.twitter.com/AlZ7j01zG7
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) August 8, 2024
After New Glenn hardware was spotted upright on the launch pad back in late February and early March, and there’s been an uptick of activity at Blue Origin’s Merritt Island facility, the company shows no signs of slowing down towards that goal of launching this year.
Space news from Cape Canaveral is not slowing down anytime soon either ? as this sight came into port on the day Space Florida announced SpaceX's plan to build three new rocket landing sites.
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at [email protected] or on X: @brookeofstars.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Attention SpaceX: New Glenn 'first stage' vertical at Port Canaveral
