Bezos’ Blue Origin scrubs first launch of New Glenn rocket poised to challenge Musk’s SpaceX
Blue Origin’s first orbital flight of the New Glenn rocket was cancelled due to technical issues, delaying its challenge to SpaceX’s dominance in the launch market
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin will have to wait a little longer for the long-anticipated maiden orbital flight of its brand-new rocket after a launch attempt dragged on for hours before being cancelled due to unspecified technical issues.
The towering 98-metre (320-foot) rocket, dubbed New Glenn in honour of legendary astronaut John Glenn, was scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during a three-hour window starting at 1:00am on Monday.
But the countdown repeatedly stalled as teams scrambled to resolve anomalies, before the mission was officially “scrubbed” around 3:10am.
“We are standing down today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window,” said Ariane Cornell, a Blue Origin executive, during a live streaming watched by hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Cornell added: “We are reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt.”
With the mission, dubbed NG-1, billionaire Amazon founder Bezos is taking 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.
