Blue Origin unveils bigger New Glenn rocket variant to compete with SpaceX

Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin said on Thursday that it will build a bigger, more powerful variant of its New Glenn rocket, unveiling early plans for a family of orbital satellite launchers similar to the fleet of Falcon rockets from Elon Musk's dominant SpaceX.

The new rocket, announced after New Glenn's second mission launched last week, will be called New Glenn 9x4, a name referencing nine engines that will power its first stage and four engines on its second stage. This represents an increase of two engines for each stage compared to New Glenn's current design.

"The next chapter in New Glenn's roadmap is a new super-heavy class rocket," Blue Origin said in a statement outlining other rocket upgrades.

Blue Origin did not specify when it expects to fly the larger rocket variant. "We aren't disclosing a specific timeframe today. The iterative design from our current 7x2 vehicle means we can build this rocket quickly," a spokesman said in response to questions about the timeline.

The two New Glenn variants, the company said, "will serve the market concurrently, giving customers more launch options for their missions, including mega-constellations, lunar and deep space exploration, and national security imperatives such as Golden Dome."

U.S. launch companies, including Rocket Lab, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (which is owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin), are either building or have early plans for larger rockets that can launch bigger batches of satellite constellations into space.

Blue Origin spent billions of dollars and nearly a decade developing New Glenn, a 29-story rocket with a reusable first stage, meant to compete with SpaceX's Falcon fleet and the more powerful Starship, a fully reusable rocket that remains in development.

Dave Limp, Blue Origin's CEO, posted on X digital renderings of the super-heavy New Glenn standing taller than the Saturn V, the 17-story rocket that sent humans to the moon during the U.S. Apollo program. The 9x4 rocket has a larger payload fairing and appears significantly taller than the original New Glenn design.