New Glenn is a partially reusable heavy-lift rocket that's expected to make its first flight in December 2024. Its developer is Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, which also flies the New Shepard suborbital tourism vehicle.
New Glenn continues the Blue Origin tradition of naming its rockets after American Mercury astronauts. The big new launcher is named after John Glenn, who made the first American orbital flight in 1962 and who returned to orbit in 1998, at age 78, for a space shuttle mission. (New Shepard is named after Alan Shepard, the first American to reach space.)
