New Glenn: Blue Origin rejects attempt to launch its most powerful rocket yet

New Glenn: Blue Origin rejects attempt to launch its most powerful rocket yet

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Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, has canceled its first attempt to launch its new, 30-story New Glenn rocket.

The company was scheduled to ignite the rocket during a three-hour launch window that opened at 1 a.m. ET Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

But during a livestream of the event, the company revealed that engineers were struggling with “anomalies,” which is aerospace-speak for problems with the rocket that need to be fixed before the final green light for launch is given .

The company did not immediately say what exact problems engineers were trying to fix.

“We are rejecting today’s launch attempt to resolve an issue with the vehicle subsystem,” said Ariane Cornell, vice president of in-space systems at Blue Origin.

It’s also unclear when Blue Origin might make another launch attempt. Cornell said the next step is to strip the New Glenn rocket of its fuel. The company began filling the vehicle’s fuel tanks with fuel – including liquid methane, hydrogen and oxygen – late Sunday evening.

“From there we’ll assess… what are the things we might want to do in our down time? And that is what will determine the timing of the next launch,” Cornell said.

At some point Monday morning, the countdown clock dropped to show less than 10 minutes before launch, but Blue Origin routinely added more time as engineers worked to fix outstanding issues. Ultimately, the issues could not be resolved in time before the launch window was scheduled to close at 4 a.m. ET.

A smooth first launch of New Glenn could be crucial as the company hopes to collect extensive data from that flight and pave the way for the rocket to quickly make an impact on the global launch industry. New Glenn is the first rocket developed by Blue Origin that will be capable of sending satellites into orbit – a feat that will be necessary for any company looking to challenge SpaceX’s long-standing dominance of the launch vehicle market.

Blue Origin declined to launch New Glenn and prepared for a busy week for space travel. Notably, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying two lunar landers is scheduled to launch as early as 1:11 a.m. ET on Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, located next to Cape Canaveral. SpaceX will also launch the seventh test flight of its gigantic Starship rocket on Wednesday.

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