Blue Origin eyes New Glenn rocket launches at Vandenberg. What to know

• The new launch site, SLC-14, is currently undeveloped land and will require construction before operations can begin.
• Standing at 320 feet, the New Glenn is one of the world's largest rockets and is integral to NASA's Artemis moon missions.
• Blue Origin's rival, SpaceX, already operates at Vandenberg but does not yet have a heavy-lift launch capability in California.

One of the largest rockets in the world could soon be launching from the coast of Southern California.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is in talks with the U.S. Space Force to bring its New Glenn rocket operations to the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.

The news comes after the base, managed by Space Force, announced at the end of 2025 that a new launch site was in the works that would offer the capability to fly heavy or super-heavy lift spacecraft. When the announcement was made, the Space Force was seeking responses from launch service providers that would be interested in leasing space at the yet-undeveloped area.

Now, Space Force has announced that it is in the final stages of negotiations with none other than Blue Origin on a lease agreement for Space Launch (SLC) 14.

That's big news for not only Vandenberg, but California.

Blue Origin, which Bezos founded in 2000, is not only one of the most well-known spaceflight businesses in the U.S., but the company is actively perfecting the New Glenn rocket for a number of high-profile missions. That includes lunar landing ventures integral to NASA's Artemis campaign to return humans to the moon.

Here's everything people in California should know about Blue Origin and its plans for the Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Blue Origin selected for new Vandenberg rocket launch site in California

Once a lease is agreed upon, Blue Origin would eventually take residence at the new site at the southernmost point of the Vandenberg Space Force Base. But the site, which is still undeveloped land with no infrastructure yet in place, is far from being launch-ready.

The Space Force began soliciting responses in December 2025 from spaceflight companies with an interest in leasing space at the site, where it could construct and operate facilities dedicated to launching rockets. Officials with Space Force previously indicated their expectation that whichever company moves into SLC-14 would be able to start operations within five years of signing a lease agreement.

"We’re continuing to unleash our capacity to execute full-spectrum space operations for the nation," Col. James Horne III, Space Launch Delta 30 commander, said in a statement announcing the partnership with Blue Origin.

For Blue Origin, having operations in California provides the ability to launch New Glenn to higher-inclination orbits.

"Blue Origin appreciates the Space Force's confidence in selecting us to pursue a launch site at Vandenberg Space Force Base, and we look forward to a strong partnership," a Blue Origin spokesperson said in a statement to the USA TODAY Network.

Third New Glenn rocket launch planned in Florida

The news comes as Blue Origin works toward launching the New Glenn rocket for the third time from Florida. The company is preparing for a critical preflight test known as a hot fire before committing to a target launch date at its launch complex at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The New Glenn rocket last got off the ground Nov. 13 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on a mission Blue Origin referred to as NG-2 that helped propel twin NASA ESCAPADE satellites on a journey to Mars. When the spacecraft reach Martian orbit, they are due to spend about a year orbiting the red planet to take simultaneous observations of solar winds and space weather.

The recent mission also saw Blue Origin complete a major first: landing New Glenn's first stage booster on the deck of a drone ship, named Jacklyn in honor of Bezos' late mother, several hundred miles offshore in the Atlantic. The maneuver was one Blue Origin failed to complete in New Glenn's debut voyage on Jan. 16, 2025.

Does Jeff Bezos own Blue Origin?

Billionaire Jeff Bezos, best known for founding Amazon, founded the private space technology company Blue Origin in 2000.

Headquartered in Washington state, Blue Origin made a name for itself with its suborbital human spaceflights using its New Shepard spacecraft from West Texas. Those missions, several of which featured celebrities like musician Katy Perry and actor William Shatner, have been paused for at least two years as Blue Origin focuses on developing its lunar lander.

What is Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket? How big is it?

Named in honor of NASA astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, New Glenn is a powerful two-stage rocket manufactured by Blue Origin classified as a heavy-lift launch vehicle.

The New Glenn rocket stands at about 320 feet tall, making it one of the largest rockets in the world. That size makes it comparable to NASA's Space Launch System rocket that just propelled the Artemis II astronauts on a mission around the moon, and slightly shorter than the U.S. space agency's iconic Saturn V rocket that was pivotal in the U.S. space agency's historic Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

The first stage that supplies the initial burst of thrust at liftoff, powered by seven of Blue Origin's BE-4 engines, is made to be reusable for at least 25 flights, according to Blue Origin. The upper stage, which flies in orbit, operates with two of the company's BE-3U engines designed for the vacuum of space.

Blue Origin envisions that New Glenn will be capable of shuttling both Amazon Leo satellites, formerly called Project Kuiper, and its separate TeraWave venture to a lower atmosphere called low-Earth orbit. Bezos also has plans for New Glenn to undertake other missions for paying customers – including NASA and telecommunications providers.

SpaceX also has Falcon 9, Starlink operations in Santa Barbara County

Blue Origin's SpaceX rival, the commercial spaceflight company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, is already the most active launch provider at Vandenberg. Musk's company routinely launches its 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4-East on missions to deploy batches of its Starlink broadband internet satellites into low-Earth orbit.

But leasing the new launch complex would give Blue Origin a capability that SpaceX does not yet have in California: launching a rocket large enough to carry payloads massive enough to be classified as a heavy-lift vehicle. SpaceX, though, is actively making plans to debut its 400-foot Starship rocket – the largest in the world – in 2026 in Florida.

Starship could next launch in May on its 12th test flight from SpaceX's Starbase headquarters in South Texas.

New Glenn would launch Artemis lunar lander

Blue Origin and SpaceX are also both racing to develop lunar landers that could be used in future missions under NASA's Artemis campaign to ferry astronauts from the moon's orbit down to the surface.

Later in 2026, Blue Origin plans to use New Glenn to launch the uncrewed Mark 1 variant of its Blue Moon lander on a pathfinding mission to the moon's south pole region.

The mission would come as Blue Origin and SpaceX both compete to have their landers ready in time for NASA's Artemis III mission in 2027, which would be a critical test of each's docking capabilities in Earth orbit.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]