Blue Origin has unveiled a third stage called GS3 for its New Glenn rocket, designed to deliver satellite constellations directly to geostationary orbit and support heavy-lift missions to the Moon and deep space. The company also announced Northstar, a new methalox booster engine that it says produces 715,000 pounds of thrust while cutting mass by 30% and parts by 50% compared with the BE-4. Space.com reports: The new stage will be powered by one BE-7 engine, which the company developed for use on its Blue Moon spacecraft, one of the two private vehicles that NASA selected to be crewed lunar landers for its Artemis program. (The other is SpaceX’s Starship.) Blue Moon landing missions won’t need to launch on GS3-equipped New Glenn rockets, according to Blue Origin. But the third stage “can support sustained operations around the moon,” the company wrote in today’s blog post. “By delivering significant payload mass directly to trans-lunar injection (TLI), GS3 enables faster transit times while preserving propellant for on-orbit operations.” And there’s already demand for such services: Blue Origin also announced today that a government customer (which it did not name) has booked a GS3 mission to cislunar (Earth-moon) space, with launch targeted for 2028.

And the company dropped yet more news today — that it’s working on a new first-stage engine, called Northstar. Like Blue Origin’s other booster engine, the BE-4, Northstar burns liquid oxygen and liquid methane propellant, a combination known as methalox. But the new engine is more powerful and less complex. “Compared to the BE-4 engine, Northstar reduces mass by 30% and parts count by 50%, while increasing thrust from 640,000 to 715,000 pounds-force,” Blue Origin said in a second blog post today. “Manufacturing advancements have also significantly shortened production timelines, enabling assembly in less than a day.” Northstar went from program approval to development testing in just 11 months, according to the company. But today’s update did not say when the new engine will fly for the first time.

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The FAA announced today that it is finally phasing out floppy disks from air traffic control systems at more than 400 facilities. Engadget reports: They’ll be replaced by a more modern system called Enterprise — Information Display System (E-IDS), which is comprised of a digital display for relaying status information, updates and other alerts to air traffic teams. The FAA plans to have E-IDS installed in 435 sites by the end of 2028; the first five locations to receive the upgrades are the Atlantic City International Airport, Nashville International Airport and Greater Rochester International Airport, as well as data processing hubs in Atlanta and Salt Lake City.

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