To Reuse or Not Reuse—the Eternal Debate of New Glenn's Second Stage Reignites

Engineers at Blue Origin are facing a challenge that has persisted for decades: whether to reuse the second stage of their massive New Glenn rocket. This debate involves complex calculations about the economics of spaceflight and the technical difficulties of bringing a rocket stage back from space. The discussion about the New Glenn rocket's design dates back more than fifteen years to the early planning stages of the heavy-lift vehicle. Everyone agreed that the first stage, the bottom portion of the rocket, would be fully reusable. However, the upper stage, which is powered by two large BE-3U engines, remained a question mark.

Around the same time in the early 2010s, SpaceX was having a similar discussion about the second stage of its Falcon 9 rocket. The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, eventually decided that making the entire Falcon 9 fully reusable was too difficult. Instead, he chose to focus on recovering the payload fairings, which are the protective covers for the satellites, and reducing the manufacturing costs of the upper stage as much as possible. This strategy proved successful. SpaceX managed to lower its internal launch costs for a Falcon 9 to approximately $15 million, even while building a new second stage for each launch. Today, the company is focused on making the much larger Starship rocket fully reusable.

The New Glenn rocket is significantly larger than the Falcon 9. It stands 98 meters tall compared to the Falcon 9's 70 meters, and its diameter is 7 meters, whereas the Falcon 9 is only 3.7 meters wide. However, New Glenn is still smaller than Starship. Because of these size differences, Blue Origin has struggled to decide whether to attempt reusing the New Glenn upper stage or to focus entirely on cutting manufacturing costs. The decision is not easy because the technology required to return a large upper stage to Earth safely is still developing.

Over the last few years, this internal debate at Blue Origin has waxed and waned. A little more than five years ago, the company started a project called "Project Jarvis" to develop a reusable upper stage made of stainless steel. This initiative was eventually abandoned. In the run-up to the first launch of New Glenn in early 2025, both the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, and the CEO, Dave Limp, told Ars Technica that they were still weighing the options for the upper stage, known as GS2.

Now, however, a new job posting suggests the debate may be swinging back toward reusing the GS2. The company posted a job advertisement on Thursday for a director of "Reusable Upper Stage Development." The description for the position outlines the difficult work ahead. It states: "As the Director of Program Management for the New Glenn Upper Stage and Payload Accommodations (GS2PA), you will work with the Vice President of New Glenn GS2PA and directly support the execution of a lean engineering initiative to incrementally develop a reusable upper stage." The salary for this high-level position goes up to $284,430.30.

New Glenn has already shown it is an exceptional rocket. It flew expertly on its debut mission in January 2025. Then, it shocked the aerospace world by making a stunning first-stage landing at sea on just its second flight in November 2025. These achievements demonstrated that the first stage could be reused reliably. However, this high performance comes with a steep price tag that threatens the long-term viability of the launch business.