Jacklyn, formerly known as LPV, Stena Freighter, Stena Seafreighter, RFA Sea Chieftain, and originally Stena Hispanica, was a roll-on/roll-off cargo ship which was purchased by Blue Origin in 2018 for use as a landing platform ship. Ultimately, Blue Origin abandoned their plans to use the ship as a landing platform, and in August 2022, the ship was towed to the Port of Brownsville for scrapping.
The ship was initially laid down in February 1997 as Stena Hispanica for Stena Line, but on 5 May 1998 was renamed RFA Sea Chieftain (A97) after the BritishMinistry of Defence (MoD) contracted with Stena for a long-term charter of the vessel for freight-carrying capacity to support the Joint Rapid Reaction Force. The ship was launched just four days later on 9 May 1998.[2]
Società Esercizio Cantieri had fallen into financial difficulties, and the contract for the ship was cancelled in 1998 due to delays in construction. At the time, work on the hull was complete and the ship 50% finished. The shipyard went bankrupt in 1999, and all work on the ship ceased.[2]
In 2002, "the incomplete vessel was purchased from a bankruptcy estate at auction by Stena Line" and renamed Stena Seafreighter. After months of additional financial and performance difficulties by several shipyards in Slovenia and Croatia in 2003, she was towed to Arsenale Shipyard in Venice, and then steamed under her own power to Kraljevica in Croatia for final completion. As a result of the delays, the ship never sailed as a Royal Fleet Auxiliary for the British Ministry of Defence.[2] The ship was renamed Stena Freighter and delivered to Stena Line in March 2004.[2]
Blue Origin called the ship LPV, short for Landing Platform Vessel.[15][16] In December 2020, it was renamed Jacklyn, after Jeff Bezos' mother Jacklyn Bezos.[17]
In April 2022, news surfaced that Blue Origin was no longer certain of plans to use Jacklyn for landing the first stage boosters of New Glenn.[18] Later, Blue Origin abandoned the project to build a landing platform vessel. Jacklyn arrived in tow at Brownsville, Texas, on 19 August 2022 to be scrapped.[19][20]
The first stage boosters of New Glenn are intended to be reusable, and Jacklyn was to recover the boosters downrange in the Atlantic Ocean east of the launch site. The ship would not have been crewed at the time the New Glenn booster was going to be landing; but rather would be autonomously or telerobotically controlled.[23]
In October 2018, Blue Origin said that their plans were to make the first orbital launch of New Glenn in 2021,[21] but in February 2021, stated that the maiden flight was now targeted for late 2022, but the ship would no longer be used after Blue Origin abandoned the project to refit it as a landing platform ship.[19]
In September 2024, Blue Origin revealed that their new landing barge, bought as a replacement for Jacklyn and tentatively known as Landing Platform Vessel 1, had also been given the name Jacklyn.[24]