Blue Origin’s New Glenn Rocket Return Slips to January 2027 as Company Unveils Powerful New Engine and Third Stage
Blue Origin’s giant New Glenn rocket will not fly again this year. The company has pushed the rocket’s return to flight to January 2027, after an explosion on the launch pad in May wrecked its Florida launch site. But the delay came with a surprise: on the same day, Blue Origin unveiled a powerful new engine and a new third stage that could make New Glenn far more capable in the years ahead.
The news was announced on Thursday, 5 November 2026, by Blue Origin’s chief executive, Dave Limp, at the UP.Summit conference at the Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida. In an internal memo to staff, Limp wrote: “We’re proactively updating our anticipated launch date to January 2027.”
It is a small delay — the rocket had been expected to fly in December — but it is a reminder of how hard it is to recover from a major accident. And it comes at a time when Blue Origin is racing to catch up with SpaceX, its great rival in the new space race.
What happened
New Glenn is Blue Origin’s heavy-lift rocket, the biggest rocket the company has ever built. It is named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth. The rocket stands 98 metres tall — about the same height as a 32-storey building — and can carry up to 45 tonnes into low Earth orbit. Its first stage is designed to be reused, landing on a ship at sea so it can fly again.
The rocket first flew on 16 January 2025. That flight reached orbit, but the booster was lost as it tried to land. On its second flight, on 13 November 2025, the booster landed successfully for the first time.
Then came the setback. On 28 May 2026, a New Glenn rocket exploded during a ground test at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The explosion destroyed the rocket and badly damaged the launch pad. Blue Origin has been rebuilding the site ever since.
The company had hoped to fly again before the end of 2026. The US aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, had even listed 28 December 2026 as the target date, and Blue Origin’s founder, Jeff Bezos, had mentioned the same date in an interview on 8 October.
That plan has now slipped. According to a memo from Limp first reported by the Financial Times and seen by The Register, the company is now aiming for January 2027 instead.
Why the delay
Rebuilding a wrecked launch pad is slow, difficult work. According to reports, the launch pad’s Vehicle Access Tower — the tall structure that gives workers access to the rocket — has been repaired and put back in place, and the launch bridge has been restored. But the work has taken longer than hoped.
The weather has not helped. In his speech, Limp pointed to heavy rain on Florida’s Space Coast. Between Sunday, 1 November, and Tuesday, 3 November, record-breaking rain fell on the area, with up to 10.5 inches (about 27 centimetres) recorded at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The rain and flooding slowed the repair work.
There is also the rocket itself. According to Limp, the first stage of the next New Glenn is ready to go. But the second stage still needs to complete a static fire test — a test in which the engines are fired while the rocket is held firmly on the ground — in Mississippi. After that, it must be shipped to Florida, joined to the rest of the rocket, and stacked on the launch pad.
Given all of that, space watchers say the slip to January is not surprising. Ars Technica, the technology news site, described the move from December to January as a “minor and widely expected delay”.
A bigger rocket: the new third stage
The delay was not the only news from Blue Origin on Thursday. The company also announced two major upgrades that could change what New Glenn can do.
The first is a new third stage called GS3, short for Glenn Stage 3. New Glenn currently flies as a two-stage rocket. The new third stage, which burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and uses Blue Origin’s BE-7 engine, would sit on top and give the rocket an extra push for the hardest missions.
GS3 is designed for missions that need to go directly into geostationary orbit — the high orbit, about 36,000 kilometres above the Earth, where communications and weather satellites sit — and for missions heading out towards the Moon and deep space.
The numbers are impressive. On the standard New Glenn 7×2 rocket, GS3 can deliver up to 8 tonnes to geostationary orbit and 10 tonnes on a path towards the Moon. On the bigger New Glenn 9×4 version, which is still being developed, those figures rise to 14 tonnes to geostationary orbit and 20 tonnes towards the Moon.
Blue Origin says GS3 is already under contract for a mission to the region around the Moon with a government customer, scheduled to launch in 2028. Testing is already under way at the company’s Launch Site One in Texas, where engineers have pressurised a liquid hydrogen tank for two and a half hours at full operating pressure.
A new engine: Northstar
The second announcement was a new rocket engine called Northstar, which will eventually replace the BE-4 engines that power New Glenn’s first stage.
Northstar is a simplified but more powerful version of the BE-4. Compared with the BE-4, it produces more thrust — 715,000 pounds of force, up from 640,000 — while weighing 30 percent less and using 50 percent fewer parts. More than 65 percent of the engine can be made by 3D printing, and Blue Origin says each engine can be assembled in less than a day.
The cost difference is just as striking. Blue Origin believes it can build a Northstar engine for about 25 percent of the cost of a BE-4 — a saving of 75 percent. The engine burns liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas, and it went from being approved to being test-fired in just 11 months. Blue Origin has released video of a 30-second static fire test.
The company has not said when Northstar will fly on a real rocket. The BE-4 will keep powering New Glenn for now. Blue Origin will also keep building BE-4 engines for United Launch Alliance, which uses two of them on each of its Vulcan rockets.
Why this matters
Taken together, the two upgrades show where Blue Origin is heading. The company wants New Glenn to fly more often, carry heavier loads, and cost less to build. Limp told the audience at the UP.Summit that Blue Origin eventually aims to position New Glenn to launch more than 1,000 times a year — an extraordinary goal for a rocket that has flown only a handful of times so far.
That ambition matters because of the Moon. New Glenn has an important job in NASA’s Artemis programme, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon.
New Glenn is one of three heavy-lift rockets supporting the Artemis programme, alongside NASA’s own Space Launch System and SpaceX’s Starship. If New Glenn’s return to flight slips further, it could put pressure on that schedule.
There is also the wider competition. SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, dominates the launch market today. Its Starship rocket is targeting its 15th orbital test flight on 8 November 2026, and a 16th flight from Florida on 10 December. Blue Origin, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in 2000, has spent years trying to catch up. Every delay gives SpaceX more room to pull ahead — but every upgrade, like GS3 and Northstar, gives Blue Origin a better chance of competing in the long run.
What is New Glenn?
For readers who are new to the story, here is a simple guide to the rocket at the centre of it.
New Glenn is Blue Origin’s first orbital rocket — a rocket powerful enough to reach space and stay there, rather than just flying up and coming straight back down, like the company’s smaller New Shepard rocket, which carries tourists on short trips to the edge of space.
It is a two-stage rocket. The first stage, powered by seven BE-4 engines, lifts the rocket off the ground. After it separates, it flies back and lands on a ship at sea, so it can be used again. The second stage, powered by BE-3U engines, carries the payload — satellites or spacecraft — the rest of the way into orbit.
The rocket is 98 metres tall and 7 metres wide. Its payload fairing — the nose cone that protects the satellites during launch — is one of the widest flying today, giving it nearly double the internal space of most rival rockets.
It is named after John Glenn, who in 1962 became the first American to orbit the Earth aboard Friendship 7. The rocket’s first flight, on 16 January 2025, carried a test version of Blue Origin’s Blue Ring spacecraft platform into orbit.
The road back
Blue Origin’s challenge now is simple to state and hard to achieve: finish rebuilding the launch pad, test the second stage, stack the rocket, and fly in January.
The company has been here before. After the first flight in January 2025, it took ten months to fly again. After the May explosion, it has taken more than five months just to rebuild. Spaceflight is unforgiving, and a single accident can cost a company the better part of a year.
But the announcements on Thursday suggest Blue Origin is thinking beyond the next flight. A cheaper, more powerful engine and a third stage that can reach the Moon are investments in the rocket’s future, not just its present. If they work as promised, New Glenn could become a very different rocket by the end of the decade: bigger, cheaper, and able to fly missions that today only a handful of rockets in the world can attempt.
For now, though, the focus is on January. The pad must be finished, the second stage must pass its test, and the rocket must be ready. Only then will New Glenn fly again — six months after the explosion that stopped it.
Frequently asked questions
What is New Glenn?
New Glenn is Blue Origin’s heavy-lift orbital rocket, named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. It stands 98 metres tall, can carry up to 45 tonnes to low Earth orbit, and has a reusable first stage that lands on a ship at sea.
Why has New Glenn’s return to flight been delayed?
A New Glenn rocket exploded during a ground test at Cape Canaveral on 28 May 2026, destroying the rocket and badly damaging the launch pad. Rebuilding the pad has taken longer than expected, and heavy rain in early November slowed the work further. Blue Origin now expects the next launch in January 2027 instead of December 2026.
When will New Glenn fly again?
Blue Origin’s chief executive, Dave Limp, told staff in a memo on 5 November 2026 that the company is now targeting January 2027 for the next New Glenn launch.
What is GS3?
GS3, or Glenn Stage 3, is a new hydrogen-powered third stage for New Glenn. It is designed to send payloads directly into geostationary orbit and on missions towards the Moon. It is already booked for a government mission around the Moon in 2028.
What is the Northstar engine?
Northstar is a new first-stage engine being developed to replace New Glenn’s BE-4 engines. It produces more thrust (715,000 pounds of force, up from 640,000), weighs 30 percent less, uses 50 percent fewer parts, and costs about 75 percent less to build. It is still being tested and has no confirmed first flight date.
What is New Glenn’s role in NASA’s Moon programme?
New Glenn is set to launch Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander into orbit as part of NASA’s Artemis programme, ahead of the Artemis-3 crewed mission targeted for the third quarter of 2027.
Conclusion
Blue Origin’s week began with a delay and ended with a promise. The delay is real: New Glenn will not fly again until January 2027, and the company is still rebuilding from the explosion that wrecked its launch pad in May.
But the promise is real too. A new third stage that can reach the Moon, and a new engine that is more powerful, lighter and far cheaper to build, show a company planning for a future in which its big rocket flies often and carries heavy loads.
Whether that future arrives on schedule will depend on the next two months. If the pad is finished, the second stage passes its test, and the rocket flies in January, Blue Origin will be back in the race. If not, the gap with SpaceX will grow wider still. Either way, the space race of the 2020s is far from over — and New Glenn is one of the rockets that will decide how it ends.
Sources
- iTech Post, “Blue Origin Reveals New Glenn Rocket Upgrades With Northstar Engine Promising 75% Lower Costs”, 6 November 2026: https://www.itechpost.com/articles/237740/20261106/blue-origin-reveals-new-glenn-rocket-upgrades-northstar-engine-promising-75-lower-costs.htm
- Behind The Black, “Blue Origin delays next New Glenn launch into 2027; unveils new 3rd stage and engine”, 6 November 2026: https://behindtheblack.com/tag/blue-origin/
- Newsy Today, “Blue Origin unveils GS3 upper stage to boost New Glenn payload capacity”: https://www.newsy-today.com/blue-origin-unveils-gs3-upper-stage-to-boost-new-glenn-payload-capacity/
- Wikipedia, “New Glenn”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn
- Starlust, “Blue Origin’s New Glenn return flight slips to January 2027, CEO Dave Limp announces”: https://starlust.org/blue-origins-new-glenn-return-flight-slips-to-january-2027-ceo-dave-limp-announces/
- The Register, “Blue Origin unveils more thrust, less haste as New Glenn slips to 2027”, 6 November 2026: https://assets.theregister.com/2026/11/06/202610/
This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.
