New Glenn: Enabling Novel Science with Heavy Lift and a 7-Meter Fairing

Blue Origin's forthcoming orbital launch system, New Glenn, offers a rare kind of capability to the scientific community: room to grow in all dimensions. The 98 m (321 ft) tall reusable rocket promises robust mass-to-orbit performance and a large 7-meter fairing to deliver industry-leading missions starting in 2021. The vehicle's performance of 45 MT to LEO and 13 MT to GTO is built upon a reusable first stage powered by seven Blue Origin-developed BE-4 LOX/LNG booster engines for a total of 17,100 kN (3,850,000 lbf) sea level thrust. An expendable second stage uses two LOX/LH2 BE-3U engines and will generate a total of 1,420 kN (320,000 lbf) of vacuum thrust. Efficient cryogenic propellants and multiple engine relight capabilities make the system well-suited for highly energetic missions beyond LEO. The two-stage architecture also comes with built-in human-capable requirements for fault tolerance and reliability, as well as high weather availability to support precise launch window targeting and a dependable launch schedule. New Glenn's baseline payload fairing is 7 m (23 ft) in diameter and 21.9 m (72 ft) tall. Originally intended to permit dual manifesting of two full-size telecommunications spacecraft or to support multi-manifesting of LEO constellation deployments, the fairing offers a nearly 40% increase in usable spacecraft diameter over 5.4 m fairings, resulting in more than 90% greater effective aperture area for fixed instrumentation. This additional diameter and height enable payloads with wider fixed aperture reflectors and optics, larger and more complex unfurlable spacecraft elements, larger aeroshells, and/or simpler deployment mechanisms for otherwise high-risk solar panels, antennas, and other instrumentation than with smaller fairings. Co-manifesting in the large volume also enables unique program architectures for orbiters and landers, as well as scientific constellations. This talk provides an overview of the New Glenn capabilities as well as the unique science enabled by such a vehicle.