Blue Origin pushes again first launch of large New Glenn rocket

The Blue Origin New Glenn rocket stands prepared for its inaugural launch on the Cape Canaveral House Power Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., January 11, 2025.
| Picture Credit score: Reuters

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin should wait just a little longer for the long-anticipated maiden orbital flight of its brand-new rocket after a launch try dragged on for hours earlier than being cancelled attributable to unspecified technical points.

The towering 320-foot (98-meter) rocket, dubbed New Glenn in honour of legendary astronaut John Glenn, was scheduled to elevate off from Cape Canaveral House Power Station throughout a three-hour window beginning at 0600 GMT on Monday.

However the countdown repeatedly stalled as groups scrambled to resolve “anomalies,” earlier than the mission was formally “scrubbed” round 3:10 am — a typical prevalence within the area business, however disappointing nonetheless for the tons of of hundreds of people that stayed as much as watch the stay feed.

“We’re standing down right now’s launch try to troubleshoot a car subsystem challenge that may take us past our launch window,” Ariane Cornell, a Blue Origin government, stated on the webcast.

She added: “We’re reviewing alternatives for our subsequent launch try.”

With the mission, dubbed NG-1, billionaire Amazon founder Bezos is taking purpose on the solely man on the planet wealthier than him: Elon Musk, whose firm SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market by way of its prolific Falcon 9 rockets, very important for the business sector, the Pentagon and NASA.

Bezos, who based Blue Origin a quarter-of-a-century in the past and celebrated his 61st birthday on Sunday, watched occasions unfold from the close by launch management room.

Musk, for his half, wished Blue Origin “Good luck!” on X.

“SpaceX has for the previous a number of years been just about the one recreation on the town, and so having a competitor… that is nice,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, informed AFP, anticipating the competitors to drive down prices.

SpaceX, in the meantime, is planning the subsequent orbital check of Starship — its gargantuan new-generation rocket — this week, upping the high-stakes rivalry.

Touchdown try

When New Glenn does fly, Blue Origin will try to land the first-stage booster on a drone ship named Jacklyn, in honor of Bezos’s mom, stationed about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) downrange within the Atlantic Ocean.

Although SpaceX has lengthy made such landings a near-routine spectacle, this might be Blue Origin’s first shot at a landing on the excessive seas.

In the meantime, the rocket’s higher stage will fireplace its engines towards Earth orbit, reaching a most altitude of roughly 20,000 km above the floor.

A Protection Division-funded prototype of a sophisticated spaceship known as Blue Ring, which might in the future fare the photo voltaic system, will stay aboard for the roughly six-hour check flight.

Blue Origin has expertise touchdown its New Shepard rockets — used for suborbital tourism — however they’re 5 occasions smaller and land on terra firma relatively than a ship at sea.

Bodily, the gleaming white New Glenn dwarfs the 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed for heavier payloads.

It slots between Falcon 9 and its huge sibling, Falcon Heavy, when it comes to mass capability however holds an edge with its wider payload fairing, able to carrying the equal of 20 transferring vans.

Gradual v. quick improvement

Blue Origin has already secured a NASA contract to launch two Mars probes aboard New Glenn. The rocket can even assist the deployment of Challenge Kuiper, a satellite tv for pc web constellation designed to compete with Starlink.

For now, nonetheless, SpaceX maintains a commanding lead, whereas different rivals — United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Rocket Lab — path far behind.

Like Musk, Bezos has a lifelong ardour for area.

However the place Musk desires of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisions shifting heavy business off-planet onto floating area platforms with a view to protect Earth, “humanity’s blue origin.”

He based Blue Origin in 2000 — two years earlier than Musk created SpaceX — however has adopted a extra cautious tempo, in distinction to his rival’s “fail quick, study quick” philosophy.

If New Glenn succeeds, it’s going to present the US authorities “dissimilar redundancy” — useful backup if one system fails, stated Scott Tempo, an area coverage analyst at George Washington College.