A New Space Age Begins

I began the year predicting it would be the year of Starship (see my January post). It turned out not to be. A string of early-year setbacks slowed the program’s momentum, and SpaceX's behemoth took longer than expected to find its stride. Although Starship notched two successful test flights in August and October, it has yet to launch a commercial payload into orbit.

Enter New Glenn, another heavy-lift, reusable, launch system, this one from Blue Origin. On November 13, it successfully launched and deployed two NASA probes bound for Mars; more on that later in the article. New Glenn is no longer just a prototype - it is now positioning itself as an operational launch vehicle. This marks a clear transition point in space exploration; a single company no longer dominates the private market for reusable launch systems. This diversification is something planetary scientists should celebrate.

For decades, deep-space missions have been constrained by launch costs, bottlenecked schedules, and the limited number of rockets powerful enough to send spacecraft beyond Earth orbit. By lowering costs and improving operational efficiencies, New Glenn’s emergence as a heavy-lift, reusable system will shape how planetary missions are planned, funded, and executed. Planetary science missions, such as the Voyagers and the Mars Rovers, are fundamentally different from the vast majority of payloads sent to space. They rely heavily on mass. This is due to the fuel required for deep-space trajectory, the complexity of the spacecraft, the bespoke large scientific instruments, and sometimes, shielding.

We've come a long way since the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched the much-plagued Galileo spacecraft 36 years ago. Launching space probes with the Space Shuttle was extremely costly, with expenses ranging from hundreds of millions to a billion dollars, and it also unnecessarily endangered the lives of astronauts. In contrast, current price ranges for Starship and New Glenn launches average a hundred million.

Historically, with budgets tight and launches exorbitant, space agencies have had to choose only the most trustworthy concepts, with large planetary missions few and far between. But competition in heavy-lift launch services may break this pattern. Lower launch costs and expanded capacity could encourage more frequent medium-class missions to Mars, Venus, the Moon, and beyond, as well as allow constellations of small, inexpensive probes to explore multiple worlds simultaneously. Importantly, they could support riskier, experimental missions, which are often the first to be cut from traditional budgets. The vision here is that instead of waiting a decade for the next major mission, scientists could see a steady cadence of launches targeting varied planetary environments.

So, what did New Glenn do that Starship hasn't yet? It launched two spacecraft to Mars. The mission, known as a EscaPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers), consists of two spacecraft (Blue and Gold) which will study Mars' magnetosphere and how solar wind contributed to the loss of most of the planet's atmosphere over solar system history. The mission will last for almost four years; the rendezvous with the red planet is planned for the end of 2027. EscaPADE is part of NASA's Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration ("SIMPLEx") program, intended to select small, low-cost space missions to fly as secondary payloads on other NASA missions. As a ride-along mission on another launch, not a main mission, they were intended to have a low cost and tolerate a higher level of risk than other NASA missions - hence, why it was chosen for the second New Glenn launch.

Going forward, once New Glenn and Starship achieve a stable, frequent launch cadence, expect lower costs and a democratisation of planetary science on a level we have never seen before. For the first time since the advent of the space era almost 70 years ago, deep-space exploration may be limited less by launch capabilities and more by imagination. The 21st-century space age has finally started.

As always, onwards and upwards.

Image Credit: Blue Origin