Blue Origin announces New Glenn rocket upgrades fit for a trip to the Moon
After its most recent successful New Glenn mission, Blue Origin is announcing propulsion upgrades to its star rocket, and plans for a larger "super-heavy class rocket" that puts the company in even closer competition with SpaceX.Blue Origin says New Glenn will get higher-performing engines at both stages, with the total thrust of the booster engines increasing from 3.9 million lbf to 4.5 million lbf. The total thrust of the upper stage of the rocket, meanwhile, is going from 320,000 lbf to 400,000 lbf. Paired with a new reusable fairing (the cover that goes over the payload of New Glenn) and an "updated lower-cost tank design," Blue Origin claims that the upgraded rocket will benefit customers heading to "low-Earth orbit, the Moon and beyond."Because you asked… pic.twitter.com/HRbQjRpHWC— Dave Limp (@davill) November 20, 2025
The company also has another rocket on the roadmap, New Glenn 9x4, the bigger sibling of the current New Glenn 7x2. Named for the number of engines it has at each stage (nine on the booster stage, four on the upper stage), New Glenn 9x4 can carry "over 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, over 14 metric tons direct to geosynchronous orbit and over 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection," Blue Origin says. Per an image shared by Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp on X, the rocket is also bigger than the Saturn V rocket that ferried humans to the Moon during NASA's Apollo 11 mission.That catapults Blue Origin into the same size range as SpaceX's Starship, which successfully deployed its payload for the first time in August, and is now facing retirement as SpaceX develops its next-generation model. Both Blue Origin and SpaceX are competing to work with NASA on future Moon missions. If Blue Origin's lunar hunger wasn't clear from the prominent framing of the Moon in its New Glenn press images, the company reportedly plans to land its unmanned lunar lander on the Moon in 2026.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/blue-origin-announces-new-glenn-rocket-upgrades-fit-for-a-trip-to-the-moon-192500333.html?src=rss
