Blue Origin is delaying the launch of the New Glenn mega-rocket

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin delayed the opening of its first orbital rocket, New Glenn, early Monday morning after experiencing an undisclosed problem with one of the vehicle’s propulsion systems.

Although such a delay occurs regularly in space, this one also sets the expected time for the installation. According to Eric Berger at Ars Technicathe company went so far as to calculate that Blue Origin would need 48 hours to reposition the rocket for launch.

On top of this, conditions in the Atlantic Ocean are expected to worsen this week, and Blue Origin is trying to unload the New Glenn booster on a ship – similar to how Elon Musk’s SpaceX often returns to the core of its Falcon 9 rockets.

The success of New Glenn is important for Blue Origin, as the company is trying to enter the heavy lift market dominated by SpaceX. Until now, Blue Origin has focused on launching visitors and science experiments into small orbits. Shepard’s new rocket. New Glenn should help open Blue Origin’s new business, which they already have contracts to give more money in places like NASA, Space Force, Amazon’s Kuiper Project, and more.

Blue Origin has been preparing to launch New Glenn for several weeks now, and finally rolled the 320-foot rocket to its launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. on January 9. At the time, the company was targeting a January 12 launch. But over the weekend, the company pushed the target date back one day to increase the chances of getting the New Glenn boost.

New Glenn’s three-hour launch window began at 1AM ET on January 13. The company loaded the controller into the rocket. But it stuck to solving an unspecified problem and pushed the launch time several times before stopping it. (Berger said it had to do with the ice blockage that keeps air from escaping the rocket.)

Blue Origin has he said The primary goal of New Glenn’s initial launch is to “get to the runway safely,” and anything beyond that is “the icing on the cake.” When New Glenn makes it to orbit, the rocket will be carrying a prototype of its Blue Ring spacecraft, which the company plans to use as a building block for a larger economy.