April 18, 2026
"It's Like a Firework, But Bigger and has a Carburetor!"
Tomorrow morning (4/19/26) the Twitch channel will be streaming the next Blue Origin launch. This will be the second launch of The New Glenn booster" Never Tell Me The Odds!" which will be launching a Blue Bird COMSAT. The launch window is 6:45 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. EDT (10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. UTC) so the stream will begin around 06:30a.m. EDT /10:30a.m. UTC. This is the first re-use of a New Glenn booster! Blue Origin is a competitor to Space-X and competition is a good thing, as it potentially gives more options and redundancy in the upcoming Moon and Mars endeavors. This class of rocket is slated to land the Blue Moon lunar probe at Shackleton Crater (lunar south pole) later this year. Also: Blue Origin is a division of a massive Mega-Corporation that might, or might not be affiliated with Twitch so everyone be there, show support and under no circumstances be the first to stop clapping for this pyrotechnic display by Mr. Bezos. I'll be providing my usual commentary squarely at the intersection of Dunning and Kruger and we'll do something after the fireworks have subsided.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:22 AM
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1
woohoo! Was not on my radar, and I am glad to see more launches in a wider variety of American designs. (Though, one of my searches says that the launch will be on the 19th, your post is seemingly saying that it was this morning. typo?)
Posted by: PatBuckman at Sat Apr 18 17:17:41 2026 (s6adZ)
2
Yes. But it was not JUST a typo. It was a typo that was copied and pasted across 3 social media platforms 5 times. (The launch WAS scheduled for the 18th, but delayed and when I updated and published my promos I missed that vital number 8.) Anyway, in 7 hours I will be streaming....probably to no-one.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Apr 18 22:13:10 2026 (dLZLE)
3
Blue Origin really needs this flight to go right, and it will be a good thing for space launch in general if it does.
As an aside, the "Comments (n)" link seems to be broken, it just takes you back to the current article, you have to click on the article timestamp to actually open comments. It's been that way for a while now.
As an aside, the "Comments (n)" link seems to be broken, it just takes you back to the current article, you have to click on the article timestamp to actually open comments. It's been that way for a while now.
Posted by: David Eastman at Sun Apr 19 13:00:13 2026 (FAnMG)
4
Blue Origin really needs this flight to go right.
Welll...
The launch was cool though, and they recovered the booster.
Welll...
The launch was cool though, and they recovered the booster.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Apr 19 17:04:10 2026 (dLZLE)
5
David,
Pixy supports the software for this blogging platform. Issues are most likely to have a fix if brought to him.
Brick,
I looked up New Glenn, and the engines/fuel. Booster is methane and oxygen, the second stage is hydrogen and oxygen. Compared to Musk, which uses methalox for both. Blue Origin is also using different engines, as you would expect.
Pixy supports the software for this blogging platform. Issues are most likely to have a fix if brought to him.
Brick,
I looked up New Glenn, and the engines/fuel. Booster is methane and oxygen, the second stage is hydrogen and oxygen. Compared to Musk, which uses methalox for both. Blue Origin is also using different engines, as you would expect.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Sun Apr 19 18:44:08 2026 (s6adZ)
6
I looked up New Glenn, and the engines/fuel. Booster is methane and oxygen, the second stage is hydrogen and oxygen. Compared to Musk, which uses methalox for both. Blue Origin is also using different engines, as you would expect.
If by "Musk" you mean just Superheavy/Starship, yes, Methane/Oxygen. But SpaceX's bread and butter Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy is Kerosene/Oxygen.
Hydrogen/Oxygen is theoretically the ideal fuel for an earth-based upper stage, but it's an engineering nightmare to deal with. The Space Shuttle and SLS had continuous seal issues, and the Delta IV series just accepted that leaks were going to happen and designed around that.
If by "Musk" you mean just Superheavy/Starship, yes, Methane/Oxygen. But SpaceX's bread and butter Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy is Kerosene/Oxygen.
Hydrogen/Oxygen is theoretically the ideal fuel for an earth-based upper stage, but it's an engineering nightmare to deal with. The Space Shuttle and SLS had continuous seal issues, and the Delta IV series just accepted that leaks were going to happen and designed around that.
Posted by: David Eastman at Sun Apr 19 22:21:17 2026 (FAnMG)
7
Yeah, I stupidly meant Starship and Superheavy by 'Musk', silly of me to ignore the other systems.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Mon Apr 20 19:34:30 2026 (s6adZ)
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