White trail of a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket crossing a blue sky

· Translated from the Spanish original · 中文 · 日本語

Space

Blue Origin tests Northstar, an engine with half the parts that aims to cost a quarter

The new engine will replace the BE-4 on the New Glenn rocket with more thrust and 30% less mass. The company is also developing a hydrogen third stage.

What happened

  • Blue Origin announced on Thursday 5 November 2026 two upgrades to its New Glenn rocket, reducing the cost of manufacturing it and expanding its capacity to deliver payloads to geostationary orbit and the Moon. Ars Technica reported it from Kennedy Space Center.
  • The company has already begun test-firing a new engine, called Northstar, which will eventually replace the BE-4 that powers the first stage.
  • It is also developing a hydrogen-oxygen third stage, called GS3, that would give the rocket an extra kick.
  • Dave Limp, its chief executive, presented it at the UP.Summit conference and said “there has never been higher demand for launch”.

Why it matters

  • The cost of making engines weighs heavily on the price of each launch. A simpler, cheaper engine can change the rocket’s economics.
  • With the third stage, New Glenn could inject payloads directly into geostationary orbit and onto Earth-escape trajectories, without intermediate steps.
  • The company says it aims, over the long term, to take the rocket to more than 1,000 launches a year. It is a stated goal, not a verified projection.

The number

25% of the cost. That is what Blue Origin believes it will cost to make a Northstar compared with a BE-4. According to Limp, the engine has half the parts, 30% less mass and about 65% can be 3D-printed.

Context

The current BE-4 delivers 640,000 pounds of thrust. Northstar will start at 715,000 pounds. Both burn methane and liquid oxygen with an oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle and a single-shaft turbopump.

Blue Origin intends that, in time, each engine be assembled in less than a day. The company will keep making the BE-4 for United Launch Alliance, which uses two of them on its Vulcan rocket.

The GS3 third stage fits within the interstage, so the full fairing volume is preserved for customers’ payloads. It can fly on both the smaller 7x2 variant, with seven first-stage engines and two second-stage engines, and on the larger one. The cost, mass and parts figures are company statements made in a public presentation, with no independent verification.

At Mamífero we follow the space industry and advanced manufacturing. We reported that an Orbital Matter satellite 3D-printed a rigid beam in vacuum and that Xona raised US$ 250 million for a low-orbit navigation network. Also that Flexell Space will test its solar cells in orbit and that a one-metre titanium single crystal was 3D-printed.

What’s next

  • Blue Origin continues its Northstar test campaign before replacing the BE-4.
  • The date on which the engine will fly on a New Glenn was not given in the presentation.
  • The BE-4 will stay in production for Vulcan for as long as the contract lasts.

Bottom line

An engine with half the parts is easier to build, and one that is easier to build is the only realistic route to more launches. Whether the quarter of the cost shows up in practice remains to be seen.

Sources

  • Ars Technica, “Blue Origin announces rocket upgrades aimed at lower costs, more performance”, 6 November 2026, link. Figures are the company’s.
  • Cover image: U.S. Space Force photo by Senior Airman Samuel Becker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Edited by Rodrigo Cornejo. How we select and verify: who writes these notes.

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