Blue Origin, NASA Partner to Test New Glenn’s Upper Stage at Mississippi Site

Kent-based Blue Origin and NASA have signed an agreement to use the historic Thad Cochran Test Stand “B-Test Complex” at NASA Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, for hot-fire testing the second stage of Blue Origin’s heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, the company announced last week.

The B-Test Complex is part of Blue Origin’s infrastructure expansion to add more test stands to hot-fire its second stages and validate upper-stage performance outside of its Launch Complex 36 site at Cape Canaveral, Florida, the company said in a news post.

The first stage of a New Glenn rocket exploded at Launch Complex 36 on May 28 during a hot-fire test ahead of its planned launch of 48 Amazon Leo satellites. The satellites were not yet loaded on the rocket, according to reports at the time. The company has cleaned up the site, but it is not rebuilding the same pad for New Glenn, CEO Dave Limp said in an X post last month.

“We’re moving to a horizontal/vertical hybrid configuration to get us flying again this year at 36A,” he wrote. “We were already working on something similar for 9×4 (a super-heavy class New Glenn rocket) at 36B. Let me explain what that means. We mate the stages horizontally in the Integration Facility (IF). Then we bring the integrated vehicle out to the pad, use a crane to perform the vertical breakover, and mate the payload once New Glenn is vertical. This new ConOps has the added benefit of increasing our flight cadence as well.”

The agreement with NASA, meanwhile, brings New Glenn testing to the legendary B-Test Complex that powered America’s journey to the moon during Apollo and will help the return, Blue Origin said in last week’s news post.

“We are proud to partner with NASA and build on our shared commitment to returning America to the Moon and our broader mission to build a road to space for the benefit of Earth,” Limp said in the post. “Stennis helped take Americans to the Moon, and through this partnership, it will take us back.”

Adding the Mississippi operations reflects Blue Origin’s commitment to high-rate manufacturing, America’s return to the moon, and support for its customers across government and commercial sectors, the company said.

“Stennis continues to be a hub for the commercial space industry,” U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi said in Blue Origin’s post. “Mississippi warmly welcomes Blue Origin’s return to the coast and to our legendary rocket testing facilities.”

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman added in a statement, “Winning the new space race means moving faster and working alongside a strong commercial industry. Supporting Blue Origin at NASA’s Stennis Space Center puts world-class American infrastructure to work advancing the capabilities needed to return astronauts to the Moon, establish a sustained lunar presence, and prepare for Mars. Partnerships like this strengthen our industrial base and help ensure the United States remains the world’s leader in space.”

In a separate release from NASA, the agency noted that testing at the Mississippi site is targeted to begin this fall and directly supports NASA’s goal to land American astronauts on the surface of the moon and building a moon base near the lunar South Pole.

Building on the Artemis II flight from April, Artemis III is a multilaunch campaign that will require four astronauts to test rendezvous and docking capabilities of NASA’s Orion spacecraft with commercial human landing systems from Blue Origin and SpaceX in low Earth orbit, NASA’s release said.

New Glenn also will be used to launch missions that will land on the moon.

In May, NASA announced the first three moon base missions to begin building sustained operations, including an award to Blue Origin to launch a robotic mission this fall. The company’s Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander will deliver NASA payloads to the lunar South Pole’s Shackleton Connecting Ridge, demonstrating capabilities that reduce risk for astronauts to land on the moon during Artemis IV and V in 2028, NASA’s release said.

To support testing at Stennis, NASA will provide engineers, equipment, and building services needed to design, build, and install parts that will prepare the B-2 test stand there for second-stage testing of the New Glenn rocket. The rocket’s second stage is powered by two BE‑3 engines, with each engine generating 200,000 pounds of thrust in vacuum, NASA said.

In addition to providing hands‑on technical support, NASA also will assist Blue Origin’s test operations by providing dedicated workspace and sharing agency expertise and lessons learned from propulsion testing conducted at the test stand, the release added.