The only comparison available is SpaceX, with its Falcon 9 rocket. The company made its first attempt at a powered descent of the Falcon 9 into the ocean on its sixth launch in September 2013. On the vehicle’s ninth flight, it achieved a successful controlled ocean landing. SpaceX made its first attempt at landing drone ships in January 2015, which failed. Finally, on the vehicle’s 20th launch, SpaceX successfully landed the Falcon 9 on earth, with the first successful drone ship landing on the 23rd flight in April 2016.
SpaceX didn’t attempt to land every one of those 23 flights, but the company certainly experienced a number of failures as it worked to safely return an orbital rocket to a small offshore platform. Blue Origin’s engineers, some of whom worked at SpaceX at the time, benefit from those learnings. But it’s still a very, very difficult thing to do on the second flight of a new rocket. The odds aren’t 3,720 to 1, but they’re probably not 75% either.
Reuse a must for the bottom line
Still, for the new Glenn program to even break even financially and ultimately turn a profit, it needs to demonstrate reuse fairly quickly. According to several sources, the new Glenn First Stage cost more than $100 million to make. It’s a rather exquisite piece of hardware, with many costs baked into the vehicle to make it quickly reusable. But these benefits only come after a rocket has been landed in good condition.
On its nominal plan, Blue Origin planned to refurbish the “Never Tell Me The Odds” booster for the third flight of the new Glenn program, a highly anticipated launch of the Lunar Lander Lunar. Such a renovation – again, on a nominal schedule – could be accomplished within 90 days. This seems unlikely, however. SpaceX did not reuse the first Falcon 9 booster it landed, and the first booster to reheat required 356 days of analysis and renovation.
Still, we’re not supposed to talk about the odds with this mission. Instead, we’ll just note that Blue Origin’s hustle and ambition is a welcome addition to the space industry, which benefits from both.
