Blue Origin unveils GS3 third stage and Northstar engine for New Glenn
Blue Origin adds a third stage and a new booster engine to push New Glenn payloads to GEO, cislunar space, and beyond.
what happened
Blue Origin unveiled GS3, a new third stage for New Glenn, and Northstar, a new LOX/LNG booster engine rated at 715,000 pounds of thrust versus the BE-4's 640,000, according to NASASpaceflight and Space.com. GS3 is powered by the existing BE-7 engine and targets direct injection to geostationary orbit and Earth-escape trajectories, delivering up to 8 metric tons to GEO and 10 metric tons to trans-lunar injection on the 7x2 New Glenn configuration, rising to 14 metric tons to GEO and 20 metric tons to TLI on the larger 9x4 variant. Blue Origin said a government customer has already booked a GS3 mission to cislunar space targeted for 2028. Per Ars Technica, CEO Dave Limp said Blue Origin is targeting a Northstar build cost of about one-quarter of a BE-4's, with half as many parts, 30% less mass, and roughly 65% of the engine additively manufactured, eventually assembling each unit in under a day; Blue Origin also said it tested a 5.5-meter composite liquid-hydrogen tank for GS3 at full operating pressure for 2.5 hours and at 150% of that pressure for 10 minutes.
why it matters
A dedicated high-energy upper stage lets New Glenn compete for GEO comsat and deep-space payloads that otherwise need a separate kick stage or a different launch vehicle, even while the rocket itself remains grounded after May's pad explosion. It also shows Blue Origin diversifying its in-house engine lineup beyond the BE-4 as it scales toward higher flight rates, with a stated manufacturing-cost target that would matter for New Glenn's per-launch economics if it holds up in production.
for who
GEO satellite operators, deep-space mission planners
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Blue Origin
- Category
- launch
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 4 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-11-05
- Published
- 2026-11-06 00:09 UTC