Resolution criteria
This market resolves to YES if Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket leaves the ground under its own power before December 31, 2026, at 11:59 PM UTC.
Otherwise, this market resolves to NO.
Background
Blue Origin's heavy-lift orbital rocket, New Glenn, has successfully flown three times:
NG-1 on January 16, 2025
NG-2 on November 13, 2025
NG-3 on April 19, 2026
On May 28, 2026, a New Glenn first-stage booster (intended for the NG-4 mission carrying Amazon LEO broadband satellites) suffered a catastrophic anomaly and exploded during a pre-launch static fire test on the pad at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) in Cape Canaveral. While the Space Force reported that the Cape Canaveral range remains fully mission capable, repairs to LC-36 and the subsequent investigation into the mishap are expected to severely impact Blue Origin's remaining launch schedule for the year.
1,000The water tower is also good. The big support tower is damaged, but it can be repaired in place rather than torn down and replaced. The booster “Never Tell Me The Odds” and the three GS-2s that were onsite in the integration facility also look good.
I’ve seen some speculation that we might move directly to the 9x4 configuration, but we won’t do that. Rate manufacturing of 7x2 is going well, and we’re going to continue that at pace as planned and store the stages for use. In addition, we had already been working for some time on eliminating our transporter-erector in favor of an alternative vertical conop, and we’ll now go directly to that; so we don’t need a new transporter-erector.
We will fly again before the end of this year. Gradatim Ferociter.