Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos, has been forced to scrub the first launch attempt of its powerful New Glenn rocket. The launch, scheduled for Monday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, was called off due to unforeseen technical issues.
The 30-story New Glenn rocket, designed for launching satellites into orbit, represents a significant step for Blue Origin in challenging SpaceX’s dominance in the commercial space launch market. A successful inaugural flight would have been crucial for gathering critical data and paving the way for future missions.
“We are standing down from today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue,”
stated Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin’s vice president of in-space systems.
During the countdown, engineers encountered “anomalies” – technical issues that required immediate attention. Despite efforts to resolve these issues, the launch team ultimately decided to abort the attempt before the launch window closed.
The company will now analyze the encountered problems and determine a new launch date. This setback comes amidst a busy week in the spaceflight industry, with SpaceX set to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying lunar landers and conduct the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket.