Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket reached a major milestone this week: It completed its first hot-fire test of the second stage, which validates the interactions between subsystems, its two BE-3U engines and ground control systems. The test lasted 15 seconds and allowed the launch team to practice launch procedures ahead of New Glenn's scheduled launch in November.
New Glenn is Blue Origin's answer to SpaceX when it comes to launching things into space. However, Jeff Bezos' company has been slow to make progress and has so far only conducted tourist flights into suborbital space on its New Shepard rocket. New Glenn was supposed to be the first mission to launch the ESCAPADE small satellite this year in partnership with NASA, but that was recently canceled.
New Glenn's (NG-1) first mission is now to launch the company's new Blue Ring orbital platform into space. Blue Origin plans to launch this mission in November of this year from Cape Canaveral, Florida.