Blue Origin closed the gap with SpaceX after its New Glenn rocket launched NASA's ESCAPADE probes to Mars and successfully landed its 321ft reusable booster on an ocean barge. The recovery makes Blue Origin only the second company to return an orbital booster intact for potential reuse. Elon Musk congratulated the Blue Origin team on X, underscoring the rivalry and occasional cooperation between the firms. ESCAPADE's probes are due to arrive at Mars in 2027 to study atmospheric loss.
Blue Origin Closes in on SpaceX as New Glenn Lands Reusable Booster After Mars Launch
Blue Origin closed the gap with SpaceX after its New Glenn rocket launched NASA's ESCAPADE probes to Mars and successfully landed its 321ft reusable booster on an ocean barge. The recovery makes Blue Origin only the second company to return an orbital booster intact for potential reuse. Elon Musk congratulated the Blue Origin team on X, underscoring the rivalry and occasional cooperation between the firms. ESCAPADE's probes are due to arrive at Mars in 2027 to study atmospheric loss.
10:30 PM, 11/14/2025Technology
Blue Origin achieves reusable-booster milestone during Mars mission
Jeff Bezos and his space company Blue Origin narrowed the gap with Elon Musk's SpaceX after the firm's New Glenn rocket launched a probe to Mars and successfully recovered its reusable booster for the first time.
The 321ft New Glenn lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida late on Thursday carrying NASA's ESCAPADE mission — two commercially built probes tasked with studying how Mars lost its atmosphere. The probes are scheduled to arrive at Mars in 2027.
Once the payload was on its way, the New Glenn booster returned to Earth and touched down on an ocean barge, completing a recovery that will allow the stage to be refurbished and flown again. That touchdown makes Blue Origin only the second company, after SpaceX, to land a large orbital rocket booster intact.
SpaceX pioneered routine booster recoveries with its Falcon 9 family, completing hundreds of missions using reusable first stages. Blue Origin's success is a significant technical and commercial milestone as the company seeks to close the gap with SpaceX in the rapidly evolving private space sector.
Elon Musk, who has at times mocked Mr. Bezos's space ambitions in the past, publicly congratulated the Blue Origin team on X: "Congratulations Jeff Bezos and the Blue Origin team." The message underlined the competitive — but occasionally collegial — relationship between the two billionaire-led companies.
Blue Origin was founded by Bezos in 2000 and spent decades developing rockets for space tourism and government missions. In 2021, the company's smaller New Shepard vehicle carried Bezos on a suborbital tourist flight. That same year Blue Origin lost a multibillion-dollar NASA lunar lander contract to SpaceX, pursued legal challenges, and later secured a separate lunar landing agreement that kept the rivalry between the companies in the spotlight.
Meanwhile, SpaceX continues testing its giant Starship system, which has experienced delays and iterative tests as the company refines the vehicle for future lunar and deep-space missions. For now, Thursday's New Glenn recovery marks a clear technical win for Blue Origin and highlights the growing role of reusable hardware in cutting the cost of access to space.