More Info for New Glenn flight two and ESCAPADE

Thanks to Eric Berger at Ars Technica, we have more information on the second (ever) launch of Blue Origin's New Glenn, a preliminary launch date and more information on the mission itself.   

The launch date is No Earlier Than Sunday, November 9th, no time given, but the range of dates given is only November 9-11, so they'd better be good and ready by the 9th. You may have seen the headlines that the booster for this mission was rolled to the launch pad today.

The rest of the article is largely about Blue being committed to successfully landing the ship, and the reality of the case being that their financial success depends on getting New Glenn reusable as quickly as possible.  The ship for this flight has been named "Never Tell Me The Odds," a line by Han Solo in one of the original Star Wars movies - The Empire Strikes Back originally in 1980.  It fits here because of how much Blue Origin wants to succeed but from observing the rest of the world, getting it on their second try doesn't seem very likely .  

Blue Origin, though, has something going for it that nobody else really had: some engineers that helped make the Falcon 9 the success that it is "jumped ship to" (or "were hired away by") Blue Origin.  This is in the same category as being "as predictable as the sunrise" or whatever your favorite phrase is.  There is exactly one company in the world that has made "reusability changes everything" a life motto and company mandate.  The question is how fast they can make it happen.  

Eric Berger says, in so many words, "I'll tell you the odds."  Blue is saying the chance they'll successfully land this booster is 75%.  Eric says, "not so fast." 

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 during its sixth launch in September 2013. On the vehicle's ninth flight, it successfully made a controlled ocean landing. SpaceX made its first drone ship landing attempt in January 2015, a failure. Finally, on the vehicle's 20th launch, SpaceX successfully put the Falcon 9 down on land, with the first successful drone ship landing following on the 23rd flight in April 2016.

SpaceX did not attempt to land every one of these 23 flights, but the company certainly experienced a number of failures as it worked to safely bring back an orbital rocket onto a small platform out at sea. Blue Origin's engineers, some of whom worked at SpaceX at the time, have the benefit of those learnings. But it is 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 percent, either.

SpaceX pretty much immortalized that in this two minute video called, "How not to land an orbital rocket booster."

Unlike the development of Falcon 9, New Glenn is a heavier lift vehicle and they've talked about intending to re-use it for years before the first mission - which was lost while trying to land. Blue has said little about what happened, raising the question of whether they really know and just aren't talking or are working from educated guesses. It's clear that they didn't get to test every aspect of the hardware and software needed for the intricate dance the booster needs to go through in order to land safely and have a reusable booster to show for it.

While hardly anybody will actually talk about this truth, the Launch Industry in America, and the rest of the world to be completely honest, pretty much comes down to SpaceX and everybody else. Eric Berger looks at it from this optimistic perspective:

Nevertheless, we're not supposed to talk about the odds with this mission. So instead, we'll just note that the hustle and ambition from Blue Origin is a welcome addition to the space industry, which benefits from both.