Blue Origin just landed their New Glenn rocket on a barge! This was an orbital mission to Mars, which makes them the second company to land an orbital booster. For context, New Glenn has over twice the payload (45 tons) of Falcon 9 (~18 tons reuseable), and half the next version of Starship (100 tons). Not many were expecting this.
SpaceX did this in December 2015, nearly 10 years ago. But going forwards, their lead will likely be smaller. The next milestone is to land a booster five times (June 2020), and between Blue, Rocket Lab’s Neutron, and numerous Chinese companies I would be surprised if it takes until 2030.
Blue Origin just landed their New Glenn rocket on a barge! This was an orbital mission to Mars, which makes them the second company to land an orbital booster. For context, New Glenn has over twice the payload (45 tons) of Falcon 9 (~18 tons reuseable), and half the next version of Starship (100 tons). Not many were expecting this.
SpaceX did this in December 2015, nearly 10 years ago. But going forwards, their lead will likely be smaller. The next milestone is to land a booster five times (June 2020), and between Blue, Rocket Lab’s Neutron, and numerous Chinese companies I would be surprised if it takes until 2030.