Blue Origin unveils New Glenn GS3 third stage and Northstar booster engine

What happened

Blue Origin chief executive Dave Limp has unveiled a third stage for New Glenn and a new booster engine, expanding the rocket’s reach into high-energy orbits and deepening the company’s American-made propulsion line-up. Blue Origin is an aerospace company based in Kent, and its products and services include New Glenn.

Alongside it, Blue Origin introduced Northstar, a liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas (LOX/LNG) booster engine rated at 715,000 pounds of thrust. Blue Origin unveils New Glenn GS3 third stage and Northstar booster engine by Chris Bergin November 5, 2026 written by Chris Bergin November 5, 2026 1 Blue Origin chief executive Dave Limp has unveiled a third stage for New Glenn and a new booster engine, expanding the rocket’s reach into high-energy orbits and deepening the company’s American-made propulsion line-up.

Now, with the official news relating to GS3, New Glenn adds a high-energy option on both the current 7×2 architecture and the larger 9×4 variant Blue Origin outlined previously. See NSF’s December 2025 New Glenn upgrades and Blue Moon coverage, and the Cape campus ramp-up report.

The third stage, GS3, is aimed at direct injection to geostationary orbit (GEO) and Earth-escape trajectories. New Glenn has already flown as a two-stage vehicle from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, including its NG-1 debut with the Blue Ring Pathfinder, the NG-2 ESCAPADE mission for NASA, and AST SpaceMobile satellites on NG-3.

NG-4 was destroyed in the pad explosion during a static fire attempt in May. However, thanks to an impressive pad repair effort , Blue Origin is already preparing to return to flight with NG-4.1, with booster “Never Tell Me The Odds”, early in 2027. The company has been promoting an ambitious forward schedule for 2027 and beyond, with an increasing launch cadence, plus another launch pad ( LC-36B ) and a new rocket variant.