Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin said on Thursday it will build a bigger, more powerful variant of its New Glenn rocket, drawing early plans for a family of orbital satellite launchers akin to the fleet of Falcon rockets from Elon Musk’s dominant SpaceX.
The new rocket, announced after New Glenn’s second mission launched last week, will be called New Glenn 9×4, a name referencing nine engines that will power its first stage and four engines on its second stage. That is an increase of two engines for each stage from New Glenn’s current design.
“The next chapter in New Glenn’s roadmap is a new super-heavy class rocket,” Blue Origin said in a statement outlining other rocket upgrades.
