Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin calls off debut launch of New Glenn rocket
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin was preparing for the maiden launch of its New Glenn rocket from Florida early on Monday.
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin called off the debut launch of its new Glenn rocket on Monday, the space technology company informed in a post on microblogging platform X.
“We’re standing down on today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window. We’re reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt,” Blue Origin said on X.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin was preparing for the maiden launch of its New Glenn rocket from Florida early on Monday. However, the countdown was delayed to investigate unspecified last-minute issues, as the company readied the rocket for its debut mission into Earth orbit, aiming to enter the competitive satellite launch market.
The New Glenn rocket, towering 30 stories high, sat on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, fueled with methane and liquid oxygen propellants.
Liftoff was initially scheduled for 1:00 am ET (0600 GMT), but as the countdown proceeded, Blue Origin repeatedly pushed back the launch time, getting closer to the end of the designated launch window at 4:00 am. By 2:20 am, a company spokesperson reported that mission teams were addressing "a few anomalies," though the specifics of the issues were not disclosed, according to a Reuters report.
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket
The rocket has been named after legendary astronaut John Glenn. The mission is being seen as Amazon founder Bezos's aim at the only man in the world wealthier than him: Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its prolific Falcon 9 rockets, vital for the commercial sector, the Pentagon and NASA.
"SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town, and so having a competitor... this is great," news agency AFP quoted G Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, as saying.
After launch, Blue Origin will attempt to land the first-stage booster on a drone ship named Jacklyn, in honor of Bezos's mother, stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.
Though SpaceX has long made such landings a near-routine spectacle, this will be Blue Origin's first shot at a touchdown on the high seas.
Meanwhile, the rocket's upper stage will fire its engines toward Earth orbit, reaching a maximum altitude of roughly 12,000 miles above the surface.
A Defense Department-funded prototype spaceship called Blue Ring will remain aboard for the roughly six-hour test flight, the AFP report mentioned.
Blue Origin has carried out landing of its New Shepard rockets -- used for suborbital tourism -- but they are much smaller and land on terra firma rather than a ship at sea.
