Blue Origin launches huge rocket carrying twin Nasa spacecraft to Mars

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida (John Raoux/AP)

Blue Origin has launched its huge New Glenn rocket with two Nasa spacecraft destined for Mars.

It was only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos’s company and Nasa are counting on to get people and supplies to the Moon.

The 321ft (98-metre) New Glenn blasted into the afternoon sky from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending Nasa’s twin Mars orbiters on a drawn-out journey to the red planet.

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida (John Raoux/AP)

Lift-off was stalled for four days by poor local weather as well as solar storms strong enough to paint the skies with auroras as far south as Florida.

In a remarkable first, Blue Origin recovered the booster following its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters, an essential step to recycle and slash costs similar to SpaceX.

Company employees cheered wildly as the booster landed upright on its ocean platform 375 miles offshore.

An ecstatic Mr Bezos watched the action from Launch Control.

“Next stop, Moon!” company employees chanted following the successful booster landing.

Twenty minutes later, the rocket’s upper stage deployed the two Mars orbiters in space, the mission’s main objective.

Nasa’s identical Mars orbiters, named Escapade (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers), are secured in Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket’s seven-metre fairing in Cape Canaveral, Florida (Stephanie Plucinsky/Blue Origin via A

New Glenn’s inaugural test flight in January delivered a prototype satellite to orbit, but failed to land the booster on a barge in the Atlantic.

The identical Mars orbiters, named Escapade, will spend a year hanging out near Earth, stationing themselves one million miles away.

Once Earth and Mars are properly aligned next autumn, the duo will get a gravity assist from Earth to head to the red planet, arriving in 2027.

Once around Mars, the spacecraft will map the planet’s upper atmosphere and scattered magnetic fields, studying how these realms interact with the solar wind.

The observations should shed light on the processes behind the escaping Martian atmosphere, helping to explain how the planet went from wet and warm to dry and dusty.

A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida (John Raoux/AP)

Scientists will also learn how best to protect astronauts against Mars’ harsh radiation environment.

“We really, really want to understand the interaction of the solar wind with Mars better than we do now,” Escapade’s lead scientist, Rob Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley, said ahead of the launch.

“Escapade is going to bring an unprecedented stereo viewpoint because we’re going to have two spacecraft at the same time.”

It is a relatively low-budget mission, coming in under 80 million dollars (£60 million), that is managed and operated by UC Berkeley.

Nasa saved money by signing up for one of New Glenn’s early flights.

The Mars orbiters should have blasted off last autumn, but Nasa passed up that ideal launch window – Earth and Mars line up for a quick transit just every two years – because of feared delays with Blue Origin’s brand-new rocket.

Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the world, New Glenn is five times bigger than the New Shepard rockets sending wealthy clients to the edge of space from west Texas.

Nasa’s identical Mars orbiters, named Escapade, are inspected and processed at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida (Kim Shiflett/Nasa via AP)

Blue Origin plans to launch a prototype Blue Moon lunar lander on a demo mission in the coming months aboard New Glenn.

Created in 2000 by Mr Bezos, Amazon’s founder, Blue Origin already holds a Nasa contract for the third Moon landing by astronauts under the Artemis programme.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX beat out Blue Origin for the first and second crew landings, using Starships, nearly 100ft (30 metres) taller than Mr Bezos’s New Glenn.

But last month Nasa acting administrator Sean Duffy reopened the contract for the first crewed Moon landing, citing concern over the pace of Starship’s progress in flight tests from Texas.

Blue Origin as well as SpaceX have presented accelerated landing plans.

Nasa is on track to send astronauts around the Moon early next year using its own Space Launch System rocket.

The next Artemis crew would attempt to land; the space agency is pressing to get astronauts back on the lunar surface by the decade’s end in order to beat China.

Twelve astronauts walked on the Moon more than half a century ago during Nasa’s Apollo programme.