It was only the second flight of the rocket that Jeff Bezos' company and NASA are counting on to get people and supplies to the moon.
The 98-metre New Glenn blasted into the afternoon sky on Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending NASA's twin Mars orbiters on a drawn-out journey to the red planet.
Liftoff was stalled four days by lousy local weather as well as solar storms strong enough to paint the skies with auroras as far south as Florida.
In a remarkable first, Blue Origin recovered the booster following its separation from the upper stage and the Mars orbiters, an essential step to recycle and slash costs similar to SpaceX. Company employees cheered wildly as the booster landed upright on a barge 600km offshore. An ecstatic Bezos watched the action from Launch Control.
"Next stop, moon!" company employees chanted following the successful booster landing.
New Glenn's inaugural test flight in January delivered a prototype satellite to orbit, but failed to land the booster on its floating platform in the Atlantic.
The identical Mars orbiters, named Escapade, will spend a year hanging out near Earth, stationing themselves 1.5 million kilometres away. Once Earth and Mars are properly aligned next autumn, the duo will get a gravity assist from Earth to head to the red planet, arriving in 2027.
Once around Mars, the spacecraft will map the planet's upper atmosphere and scattered magnetic fields, studying how these realms interact with the solar wind. The observations should shed light on the processes behind the escaping Martian atmosphere, helping to explain how the planet went from wet and warm to dry and dusty. Scientists will also learn how best to protect astronauts against Mars' harsh radiation environment.
Named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the world, New Glenn is five times bigger than the New Shepard rockets sending wealthy clients to the edge of space from West Texas. Blue Origin plans to launch a prototype Blue Moon lunar lander on a demo mission in the coming months aboard New Glenn.
Created in 2000 by Bezos, Amazon's founder, Blue Origin already holds a NASA contract for the third moon landing by astronauts under the Artemis program. Elon Musk's SpaceX beat out Blue Origin for the first and second crew landings, using Starships, nearly 30m taller than Bezos' New Glenn.
But in October NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy reopened the contract for the first crewed moon landing, citing concern over the pace of Starship's progress in flight tests from Texas. Blue Origin as well as SpaceX have presented accelerated landing plans.
NASA is on track to send astronauts around the moon early next year using its own Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket. The next Artemis crew would attempt to land; the space agency is pressing to get astronauts back on the lunar surface by decade's end in order to beat China.
Twelve astronauts walked on the moon more than 50 years ago during NASA's Apollo program.
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