Blue Origin postpones launch of New Glenn rocket due to technical problem

Company has several New Glenn rockets in production and a full customer programme ready

Life

Jeff Bezos

A technical problem forced Blue Origin to postpone the first orbital launch of its New Glenn rocket. The launch, originally scheduled for early morning today from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, was aborted minutes before launch.

Ariane Cornell, launch commentator, explained that a problem with the rocket’s subsystem needed further resolution, which put the attempt outside the available launch window. Blue Origin is now evaluating options for the next launch attempt.

This delay follows two previous postponements due to expected rough seas in the booster first stage landing zone. Although calmer conditions had raised hopes for a successful launch tonight, technical problems ultimately prevailed. The New Glenn mission is of great importance because it is Blue Origin’s first launch into orbit.

A successful launch of New Glenn would intensify competition within the orbital launch industry, which is currently dominated by SpaceX. It would also pave the way for a wide range of applications supported by Blue Origin, including satellite constellations, lunar missions and a commercial space station. Jeff Bezos (pictured), founder of Blue Origin, has emphasised lowering the cost of access to space, with New Glenn as a key tool to achieve this goal.

Development of New Glenn began in 2012, with Bezos publicly announcing plans for a factory in Florida and launches at Cape Canaveral in 2015. The towering rocket is more than 320 feet tall and has a payload bay that can accommodate an entire New Shepard rocket.

Powered by seven BE-4 engines in the first stage and two BE-3U engines in the second stage, New Glenn generates 3.8 million pounds of thrust at launch – about half the power of the Saturn V lunar rockets used during the Apollo era.

The first trip, named NG-1, carries Blue Origin’s Blue Ring Pathfinder, a technology demonstration payload designed to test telemetry, communications and control systems for their future Blue Ring space mobility platform. This mission is part of the Defense Innovation Unit’s initiative to improve space mobility for the Pentagon and also serves as Blue Origin’s first certification flight for the National Security Space Launch program.

The Blue Ring Pathfinder will be put into a highly elliptical orbit ranging from 1,490 to 12,000 miles in altitude. This unusual orbit is designed to evaluate the capabilities of the in-space system and ground infrastructure at these orbital altitudes. Although the first-stage booster is designed for autonomous landing on a special ship called Jacklyn, challenging sea conditions have previously led to postponement.

Despite the setbacks, Blue Origin has several New Glenn rockets in production and a full customer program for future launches. These include satellites for Amazon’s Project Cooper broadband constellation and AST SpaceMobile’s cellular network in space. Further in the future, New Glenn will launch two space rockets to Mars for Nasa’s ESCAPADE mission.

Business AM

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