There’s a good bit riding on the second launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
Most directly, the fate of a NASA science mission to study Mars’s upper atmosphere hinges on a successful launch. The second flight of Blue Origin’s heavy-lifter will send two NASA-funded satellites toward the red planet to study the processes that drove Mars’s evolution from a warmer, wetter world to the cold, dry planet of today.
A successful launch would also nudge Blue Origin closer to winning certification from the Space Force to begin launching national security satellites.
