CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket delivered a landmark success on Thursday, November 13, 2025, successfully deploying its NASA payload and achieving a critical milestone by landing its massive, reusable first stage.
The rocket’s seven BE-4 engines ignited at 3:55 PM EST, lifting off from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. On its second-ever flight, New Glenn cleanly delivered NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft into their initial orbit. The mission’s pinnacle moment came when the first stage booster, one of the largest ever built, descended back through the atmosphere and touched down on the recovery vessel Jacklyn in the Atlantic Ocean.
“We achieved full mission success today,” declared Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp. “Never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try. This is just the beginning as we rapidly scale our flight cadence.”
The primary payload, the ESCAPADE mission, consists of two identical satellites built by Rocket Lab for the University of California, Berkeley. Now in orbit, they will await a late-2026 departure window to begin their journey to Mars, where they will study how the solar wind strips away the Martian atmosphere.
Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy praised the collaboration, stating, “This heliophysics mission will help reveal how Mars became a desert planet… Every launch of New Glenn provides data that will be essential when we launch MK-1 through Artemis.” He also connected the mission’s science to the long-term goal of a human Mars mission.
The flight also carried a secondary payload: a successful demonstration of Viasat’s HaloNet telemetry data relay service for NASA’s Communications Services Project.
With this second successful flight and a nailed landing, New Glenn has cemented its operational credentials. The vehicle is a cornerstone of Blue Origin’s ambitious plans, which include supporting lunar presence through the Artemis program and its own Blue Ring orbital platform. With a full commercial manifest and National Security Space Launch certification in progress, the company is poised to significantly increase its launch tempo.
