Photo: Charles Boyer / Talk of Titusville
Good things come to those who wait, or so goes the old saying. For Blue Origin and the second flight of New Glenn, the second flight of New Glenn was definitely worth that wait: a flawless liftoff, flight to orbit and a booster safely landed aboard Jacklyn, the company’s landing platform stationed offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. Not a bad day’s work.
New Glenn’s seven BE-4 engines ignited at 3:55:01 PM ET Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and the rocket began its slow climb into space.
Not since the Saturn V has a rocket so large flown from the Eastern Range without the benefit of solid rocket boosters, and it showed as New Glenn seemed to take its time tearing away the surly bonds of gravity on its way to space. Slow it may have started, but New Glenn didn’t take long to gather speed and start its climb to space in earnest.
Photo: Charles Boyer / Talk of Titusville
Max-Q came at about T+ 01:35, and MECO at T+ 03:05 into the flight. As GS-2, New Glenn’s second stage continued ascent towards orbit, the first stage began a series of maneuvers that culminated in the first stage landing aboard Jacklyn, Blue’s drone ship landing platform at about T +09:15. After the smoke cleared, the result was clear: Blue Origin had landed their 89 feet (57.5 meters) tall booster on only their second try.
New Glenn NG-2 ESCAPADE in flight on November 13. 2025
Photo: Charles Boyer / Talk of Titusville
Meanwhile, at about thirteen minutes into flight, New Glenn achieved its initial orbit and one burn later, at T +33:18 the Rocket Lab built payloads of twin Martian orbiters began deployment.
All in all, it seemed textbook flawless, and even though there were software glitches, ground equipment issues, and other anomalies on the way to liftoff, it’s fair to say that Blue Origin had the day they’d been working for during most of 2025 after the first flight of New Glenn in January. They had an entirely successful mission, and, like NG-1, their engineers gained experience and real-world data in the process. They will undoubtedly put that new knowledge to work, probably before dawn tomorrow as the company gets back to work and starts preparing for its upcoming third New Glenn launch.
“We achieved full mission success today, and I am so proud of the team,” said Dave Limp, CEO, Blue Origin. “It turns out Never Tell Me The Odds had perfect odds—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 and continue delivering for our customers.”
ESCAPADE Have A Long Path Ahead
Ground controllers established communications with both spacecraft by 10:35 PM ET. The pair of satellites will now travel to a staging orbit near the Sun–Earth L₂ point, roughly a million miles from Earth.
For ESCAPADE twin satellites, the journey is just beginning.
ESCAPADE — Road Trip to Mars (Travel Plan Overview)
| Phase | When | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Launch & Drop-off | Nov 2025 | Twin ESCAPADE probes launch on Blue Origin’s New Glenn from Cape Canaveral. New Glenn places them on a high Earth-proximity trajectory headed toward the Earth–Sun L2 region instead of a direct Mars transfer. |
| 2. Loiter “Kidney-Bean” Orbit | Late 2025 → Late 2026 | Spacecraft enter a long, kidney-bean-shaped orbit near an Earth–Sun Lagrange point. They perform checkouts and space-weather observations while waiting for the next favorable Earth–Mars alignment in late 2026. |
| 3. Earth Return & Trans-Mars Injection | Nov 2026 | As the loiter orbit swings them back by Earth, the probes pass through a low perigee and fire their main engines. This burn harnesses the Oberth effect to efficiently push them onto a Mars-bound trajectory. |
| 4. Cruise to Mars | Late 2026 → Sept 2027 | ESCAPADE follows a ballistic transfer orbit to Mars, with small trajectory-correction maneuvers along the way. Total time from launch to Mars arrival is about 22 months. |
| 5. Mars Arrival & Capture Orbits | ~Sept 2027 → Early 2028 | The probes perform Mars Orbit Insertion into a large, highly elliptical capture orbit. Over the following months, they trim and adjust their orbits into coordinated science configurations around Mars. |
| 6. Main Science Phase | Late Spring 2028 → | In their final orbits, the twin spacecraft make simultaneous measurements from different vantage points to study Mars’ magnetosphere and how the atmosphere escapes into space. |
“The ESCAPADE mission is part of our strategy to understand Mars’ past and present so we can send the first astronauts there safely,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Understanding Martian space weather is a top priority for future missions because it helps us protect systems, robots, and most importantly, humans, in extreme environments.”
The Immediate Future Looks Bright For Blue
Blue Origin said today that it has several vehicles in production and multiple years of orders for New Glenn flights. They added in their press release today that in addition to NASA and Viasat, customers include Amazon’s Project Kuiper (Now Amazon LEO), AST SpaceMobile, and several telecommunications providers, among others.
The mission marked the vehicle’s second National Security Space Launch (NSSL) certification flight as well. Blue Origin is certifying New Glenn with the U.S. Space Force for the NSSL program to provide launch services for high-value military payloads, and today’s flight was another step towards achieving that certification.
Now Blue Origin has to work on cadence: for New Glenn to be a profitable and useful program, it must be able to recycle and relaunch vehicles relatively quickly. As Blue stated, they have more hardware under construction here at Exploration Park on Merritt Island. They also have a returning booster to refurbish, repair, and return to the launch pad. It’s a solid start, and a sign that Blue Origin is starting to fulfill its potential as a true competitor in the commercial launch services marketplace.
Rewatch
Author: Charles Boyer
NASA kid from Cocoa Beach, FL, born of Project Apollo parents and family. I’m a writer and photographer sharing the story of spaceflight from the Eastern Range here in Florida.
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