Space Jeff Bezos' new rocket New Glenn to be launched on Monday
The maiden flight of the New Glenn rocket from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' US space company Blue Origin has been postponed again. The rocket launch from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida is now scheduled for Monday, 01:00 local time (07:00 CET).
12.01.2025, 00:45
12.01.2025, 00:46
SDA
According to a statement from Blue Origin, the reason for the new postponement is the rough seas in the Atlantic. The launch vehicle is due to land on a ship there.
The launch of the rocket had already been postponed several times, most recently from Thursday to Sunday. The 98-meter-high rocket is named after the US astronaut John Glenn. On December 27, New Glenn had already successfully completed the decisive test before the first test flight.
On its first flight, the rocket will carry a prototype of Blue Ring, a spacecraft funded by the US Department of Defense to launch satellites into space.
Musk dominates commercial space travel
With New Glenn, Blue Origin is set to make its long-awaited entry into the lucrative market for orbital rockets. Until now, the company has only transported passengers and payloads on short trips to the edge of space with its smaller New Shepard suborbital rocket. Orbital rockets reach Earth orbit, suborbital rockets do not reach the necessary altitude.
So far, commercial space travel has been dominated by Elon Musk's company SpaceX. The new orbital rocket from Blue Origin is also likely to intensify the rivalry between Musk, the richest person in the world, and Bezos, the second richest.
Musk is currently clearly in the lead with SpaceX in commercial space travel and, as a close confidant of US President-elect Donald Trump, now also has political influence. Commercial satellite operators as well as the Pentagon and the US space agency NASA use SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets. Competitors such as United Launch Alliance, Arianespace and Rocket Lab are far behind.
