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Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket rises on launch pad ahead of debut liftoff
Blue Origin's powerful new rocket has gone vertical on the launch pad for testing, ahead of a possible debut flight later this year.
The New Glenn rocket from Blue Origin rolled out on to Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Wednesday (Feb. 21), the company founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos announced.
The heavy-lift rocket will be put through its paces in the coming weeks and months with "several demonstrations of cryogenic fluid loading, pressure control and the vehicle’s venting systems," Blue Origin officials wrote in a statement.
New Glenn is about 322 feet (98 meters) tall and can send roughly 50 tons (45 metric tons) to low Earth orbit. It will be Blue Origin's first orbital rocket. The company currently flies people and payloads to suborbital space with a smaller vehicle called New Shepard.
New Glenn's lifting capacity will be twice that of SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, and, like the Falcon 9, its first stage will be reusable. That booster will feature seven of Blue Origin's BE-4 engines, which continue to undergo hot-fire tests at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama and at a Blue Origin site in west Texas.
The BE-4 was already tested during a spaceflight in January — the first flight of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket, which sent Astrobotic's Peregrine moon lander to space. While the launch went well, a fuel leak aboard Peregrine caused the lander to come crashing back to Earth 10 days after liftoff.
New Glenn's development has been going on for more than a decade, and its first targeted launch date of 2020 has been delayed several times. The rocket's debut effort will aim to launch NASA's two-spacecraft EscaPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) Mars mission no earlier than August.
注释：
cryogenic: adj
表示"低温的；冷冻的"，means "of or relating to very low temperatures"，如：All cryogenic liquids are extremely cold. 所有低温液体的温度都极低。
falcon: n
表示" 猎鹰；隼"，(雌鹰称为falcon，雄鹰称为tiercel), 如：The boys went hunting with their falcon. 男孩子们带着猎鹰出去打猎了。
Peregrine: n
表示" 游隼"，如：But experts can't agree on the peregrine's top speed. 但专家们对游隼的最高飞行速度未达成一致。
中文简要说明：
亚马逊集团(Amazon)创始人杰夫贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)终于可以挑战马斯克(Elon Musk)的太空版图了！贝佐斯的太空企业「蓝色起源」(Blue Origin)宣布，新格伦火箭(New Glenn)已运到佛州卡纳维拉尔角太空中心的第36 号发射场（LC-36）。
太空网(Space.com)报导，蓝色起源的声明中写道，这枚重型火箭将在未来几星期和几个月内，进行各种发射前测试，包括「低温流体装载、压力控制和飞行器通风系统测试等重要的工作」，假如一切顺利，有机会在今年下半年装填燃料并点火测试。
新格伦火箭高度98公尺，直径7公尺，是仅次于Space X的星舰超重型火箭(Starship-Super Heavy)、NASA登月的土星5号火箭(Saturn V)的第3巨大火箭，可将50 吨的物体送入近地轨道，或是将1.3吨的物体送到地球同步轨道。它是蓝色起源公司的第1枚真正意义的太空火箭。目前该公司仅有一种名为「新雪帕德」(New Shepard)的小型火箭，仅能将人员运送到离地表150公里的亚轨道太空，乘员只能体验大约10分钟的无重力状态。
新格伦的运载能力将是 SpaceX 主力-「猎鹰 9 号火箭」(Facon 9)的两倍，并且与猎鹰 9 号一样，它的第一级可以重复使用。
新格伦的底部装备了7具该公司自行研发的BE-4 火箭发动机，这些发动机采用甲烷-液态氧燃料，已研发超过10年。
好消息是，BE-4引擎已经先完成了实际发射。今年一月，联合发射联盟(ULA)的「火神火箭」完成首射，它安装了2具BE-4发动机，成功地将「游隼号」(Peregrine)月球探测器送入太空。虽然游隼号后来因燃料泄漏导致登陆器失败，但这与火神火箭无关。
目前的商业太空事业以SpaceX一枝独秀，他们的猎鹰 9 号火箭是发射次数最多，成功率最高的火箭，而且成本还低。同样有太空梦想的贝佐斯， 一直想靠着新格伦火箭来挑战马斯克的SpaceX。如今终于有机会了，虽然新格伦的运载力弱于马斯克的星舰火箭，但是星舰火箭的2次试射都没有成功。
只要新格伦通过了发射前测试，那么它的第1个太空任务有可能在9月(或之后)，发射 NASA 的两艘火星探测器「捉弄任务」(EscaPADE)，研究火星大气层边缘遭受太阳风冲击有什么变化。
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