Orwell Astronomical Society (Ipswich)
Upper Stage of New Glenn Carrier Rocket, 21-30 November 2025
On 13 November 2025, Blue Origin (founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos) launched a New Glenn rocket carrying a pair of satellites, named Blue and Gold, en route to Mars. The route of the satellites is circuitous, involving a slingshot manoeuvre around the Earth in late 2026.
I tried to image the satellites. Unfortunately, by the time I obtained predicted positions and there was clear weather, they had travelled well past the Moon and were just too faint. There may be an opportunity to image them in a year's time during the slingshot manoeuvre.
The launch vehicle, the New Glenn rocket, is much brighter than the satellites. Its upper stage is 7 m wide and 23.4 m tall, an area of 164 m2, and is painted white. The satelites are each equipped with solar panels presenting an area of approximately 8 m2. I obtained predictions for the position of the rocket. At a distance of 900k km and at a predicted magnitude of 16.9, it would be at the limit of visibility in a 60 second exposure. The following image shows it barely detectable in the raw image, and much more easily visible when images are aligned on the object and stacked.
The trail of the rocket is uneven in brightness. The following video reveals why: the rocket is tumbling, with a period of around 5 minutes. I estimate the peak brightness to be magnitude 16.5.
I imaged the rocket again on 24 November, as it continued its departure from Earth. When imaged, it was at a distance of 1.2million km.
By 30 November, the upper stage was at a distance of 1.6 million km away (four times the distance of the Moon) and tumbling slowly. It was only occasionally visible in single frames and is visible below as a solitary dot when frames are stacked.
Nigel Evans