CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — All systems are a go for Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a launch license to the spacecraft on Friday.
The license allows the rocket company to conduct orbital missions from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida for the next five years.
A statement from the FAA says the rocket company met all safety, environmental, and other licensing requirements.
“A big thanks to the FAA for the partnership, especially over the holidays. Here’s to NG-1 — we are really close, folks,” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp wrote on X.
The 322-foot-tall rocket is powered by seven of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines, which are the most powerful liquefied natural gas-fueled, oxygen-rich staged combustion engines ever flown.
New Glenn was initially scheduled to send up a pair of Mars-bound satellites for NASA in October, but the agency decided to wait until New Glenn had at least one successful launch.
With the FAA license and hot fire test complete, a liftoff could happen sometime soon—although Blue Origin has not announced a date.
Blue Origin says New Glenn’s first flight will bring up a pathfinder for the company’s Blue Ring hardware, which is designed to deliver payloads to their proper place in orbit once deployed. It will also be the first of two required flights to get certification by Space Force to fly national security missions.
While NASA has yet to announce its new target launch window for the Mars-bound mission called ESCAPADE, Blue Origin has several other customers who have been waiting for New Glenn to come online, including Amazon, which has tasked New Glenn to help send up thousands of its Project Kuiper internet satellites to build a constellation that would compete with SpaceX’s Starlink, AST SpaceMobile, several telecommunications providers, and a mix of U.S. government customers.
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