Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has unveiled plans for a new rocket with a reusable booster:
The rocket – named for John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth – is meant to take astronauts into orbit and beyond. It will come in a two-stage and a three-stage variant, both of which will have recoverable boosters. "New Glenn is designed to launch commercial satellites and to fly humans into space," wrote Jeff Bezos in a statement. "The 3-stage variant – with its high specific impulse hydrogen upper stage – is capable of flying demanding beyond-LEO [low Earth orbit] missions."
The rocket will be 7 metres in diameter and range between 82 and 95 metres tall. That makes it physically larger than any current rockets and nearly as big as the Saturn V rocket that took humans to the moon.
To lift all that, New Glenn will have 17 million Newtons of thrust from seven engines, about half the lifting power of the Saturn V. That makes it competitive but not the biggest among the planned heavy lift rockets. NASA's Space Launch System will have 37 million Newtons of thrust, and SpaceX's Flacon Heavy will have 22 million. None of these heavy lifters have flown yet, however. Bezos says he plans to launch the New Glenn rocket by the end of the decade, and hinted at an even bigger rocket to come, called New Armstrong.
Also at Reuters.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:01PM
Its capacity might just be a sweet spot in the market.
When you want to launch your satellite you don't buy a ticket for the biggest rocket you can find. You buy a ticket for one that fits your needs.
(E.g. Arianne 5 often launches multiple satellites at the same time because its capacity is just to much for the average satellite to ride alone)