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Blue Origin announces 3rd stage for its powerful New Glenn rocket —and a new engine
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Blue Origin's big rocket is getting a little bigger.
Jeff Bezos' company announced today (Nov. 5) that it has developed a third stage for its New Glenn rocket, which it says will make the powerful launcher more capable and flexible.
The stage, called the GS3, "enhances New Glenn's capabilities," Blue Origin said in a blog post today. "The third stage enables direct deployment of satellite constellations to GEO [geostationary orbit] and supports heavy-lift science and exploration missions to the moon and deep space."
New Glenn is a two-stage vehicle at the moment. Its reusable first stage is powered by seven of Blue Origin's BE-4 engines, and its second stage features two of the company's BE-3Us. The rocket stands 322 feet (98 meters) tall and can haul 14.3 tons (13 metric tons) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) and 50 tons (45 metric tons) to low Earth orbit (LEO).
These are the specs for the standard, or "7x2," version of New Glenn. Last year, Blue Origin announced that it's developing a super-heavy variant known as the 9x4, because it will feature nine first-stage BE-4s and four upper-stage BE-3Us. The 9x4 will be nearly 400 feet (122 m) tall, and it will be able to loft 15.4 tons (14 metric tons) to GTO and 77 tons (70 metric tons) to LEO, according to Blue Origin.
New Glenn has flown three times to date, each time in the 7x2 configuration. The rocket debuted in January 2025, then launched again in November 2025 and again on April 19 of this year.
Things didn't go according to plan on that latest mission. The rocket deployed AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 communications satellite into the wrong orbit, and the spacecraft ended up being lost.
Another setback came just a month later: On May 28, New Glenn exploded on the pad during a routine engine test at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Blue Origin has been working ever since to rebuild the pad and get New Glenn ready for its fourth flight, which is expected to occur late this year.
We now know that Blue Origin has also been working on the GS3 while those repairs were underway. The new stage will be powered by one BE-7 engine, which the company developed for use on its Blue Moon spacecraft, one of the two private vehicles that NASA selected to be crewed lunar landers for its Artemis program. (The other is SpaceX's Starship.)