Bezos’ Blue Origin gets FAA license for its first New Glenn rocket launch

(Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday that it has issued a commercial space launch license for Blue Origin’s — Jeff Bezos’ rocket company — New Glenn launch.

Blue Origin entered into a highly competitive area it has long sought to join, as the U.S. Department of Defense picked the company, along with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance, to compete for national security space missions.

The Pentagon had made initial selections under a $5.6 billion program in June.

The five-year license allows Blue Origin to conduct orbital missions from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with the reusable New Glenn first stage landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, the FAA said in a statement.

The New Glenn debut will be a certification mission required by the U.S. Space Force before the company can begin launching national security satellites.

The debut mission was previously meant to launch a pair of NASA spacecraft to Mars before late October, but New Glenn had not completed its development by then, prompting NASA to move the spacecraft off the rocket.

Instead, New Glenn will launch technology related to its Blue Ring program, a line of business that will offer maneuverable spacecraft to the Pentagon.

SpaceX has dominated the launch industry with its partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket and is in the process of testing its next-generation rocket, Starship, which is designed to be fully reusable.

During a flight test in October, Starship’s towering first-stage booster was able to return from the edge of space to its Texas launch pad for the first time.

Blue Origin, on the other hand, has struggled to bring its giant New Glenn rocket to market. In December last year, it tapped Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) veteran Dave Limp to expedite development of its New Glenn rocket.