B-2 STAND THAT TESTED SATURN V TO HOST NEW GLENN SECOND STAGE

NASA and Blue Origin have agreed to conduct second stage hot fire testing of the New Glenn rocket at the B-2 test stand at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The arrangement is formalised through an annex to a reimbursable Space Act Agreement signed earlier in July 2026 and forms part of NASA’s commitment to working alongside commercial partners towards Artemis missions in 2027 and beyond. Testing is targeted to begin in autumn 2026.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said winning the new space race meant moving faster and working alongside a strong commercial industry, and that supporting Blue Origin at NASA’s Stennis Space Center put world-class American infrastructure to work advancing the capabilities needed to return astronauts to the Moon, establish a sustained lunar presence, and prepare for Mars. Dave Limp, CEO of Blue Origin, said the company was proud to partner with NASA and build on a shared commitment to returning America to the Moon, noting that Stennis had helped take Americans to the Moon during Apollo and would now help take them back.

NEW GLENN SECOND STAGE SPECIFICATION AND THE B-2 STAND’S HISTORY

The New Glenn second stage is powered by two BE-3 engines burning liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, each generating 200,000 pounds of thrust in vacuum. NASA will provide engineers, equipment and building services to design, build and install the modifications required to prepare the B-2 stand for second stage testing of the rocket. The stand has a history of testing rocket stages for Moon missions dating to the 1960s — it was constructed to test Saturn V rocket stages for the Apollo programme and more recently hosted the Green Run test series of the Space Launch System core stage ahead of the Artemis I test flight.

In addition to the physical infrastructure support, NASA will provide dedicated workspace and share agency expertise and lessons learned from its own propulsion testing history on the stand. Blue Origin will use the stand to work towards second stage testing as part of its broader rocket development programme.

ARTEMIS III, BLUE MOON AND THE WIDER MOON PROGRAMME CONTEXT

The agreement sits within the context of Artemis III, a multi-launch campaign that will require four astronauts to test rendezvous and docking with commercial human landing systems from both Blue Origin and SpaceX in low Earth orbit. New Glenn will also be used to launch missions that will land on the Moon. In May 2026, NASA announced the first three Moon Base missions to begin building sustained operations, including an award to Blue Origin to launch a robotic mission in autumn 2026: the Blue Moon Mark 1 Endurance lander will deliver NASA payloads to the lunar South Pole’s Shackleton Connecting Ridge, demonstrating capabilities that reduce risk for Artemis IV and V crewed lunar landing missions in 2028.