Updated Sun., Jan. 12, 2025 at 4:10 p.m. A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket sits on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 36. The company is now targeting liftoff early Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (Courtesy Blue Origin/TNS) (Courtesy Blue Origin/TNS/TNS) X Orlando Sentinel Blue Origin pushed again its planned debut launch of its New Glenn rocket from the Space Coast, targeting an early Monday morning liftoff. The 321-foot-tall rocket making its debut on the NG-1 mission targeted a three-hour window from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. PT Monday for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 36. News of the launch’s outcome was not available before press time. It had been targeting an early Sunday launch, but the company called that off noting poor weather in the Atlantic, where it intends to try a booster recovery after launch, similar to how SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket boosters make their landing. Blue Origin had already delayed its original early Thursday launch target this week because of high seas. Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 90% chance for good launch conditions in Cape Canaveral at the opening of the Monday window, coupled with low chances for poor recovery weather in the Atlantic. A 24-hour delay would see conditions worsen to only 40% chance for good weather. Billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos created Blue Origin back in 2000, but has to date only launched the smaller suborbital New Shepard rockets from its facilities in West Texas. The New Glenn rocket, manufactured at Blue Origin’s massive Rocket Park campus adjacent to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Merritt Island, is Bezos’ foray into the heavy-lift rocket game to compete with SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. The payload for NG-1 is pathfinder hardware for Blue Ring, the satellite distribution apparatus the company will eventually use to transport customer payloads to desired orbital locations after deployment from the rocket’s second stage. The pathfinder won’t leave the second stage for NG-1, but will test out communication and telemetry. New Glenn’s debut launch was originally targeting last fall for a NASA mission to send a pair of satellites to Mars, but NASA opted to delay that mission as New Glenn’s readiness for the required launch window was cutting it close. Blue Origin then pivoted to fly up their own hardware, but the mission will also satisfy a Space Force requirement of two successful certification launches before the company would be allowed to fly national security missions. The flight profile has the rocket lifting off from LC-36 powered by seven of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines using the blue flame-burning combination of liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas. Combined, they produce 3.9 million pounds of thrust, which is more than twice the power of a Falcon 9. After separating from the first stage, the second stage, powered by two of the company’s hydrogen-powered BE-3U engines, will head to a highly elliptical, medium-Earth orbit with an apogee of about 12,000 miles altitude. After the mission, the second stage will be made inert and remain in space as orbital debris. The first stage has been dubbed “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,” referencing a classic line from the Jim Carrey comedy “Dumb & Dumber.” It will attempt its landing on the ship named Jacklyn (named after Bezos’ mother), located several hundred miles downrange, after which it will be brought back to Port Canaveral to be lifted off and sent back to the Rocket Park for refurbishment. The New Glenn boosters are designed for 25 flights. “This is our first flight, and we’ve prepared rigorously for it,” said Jarrett Jones, senior vice president for the New Glenn program. “But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations are a replacement for flying this rocket. It’s time to fly. No matter what happens, we’ll learn, refine, and apply that knowledge to our next launch.” Bezos invested more than $1 billion to refurbish LC-36, which was previously used for government launches from 1962-2005 including lunar lander Surveyor 1 in 1967 and some of the Mariner probes. The complex has enough room to process three New Glenn rockets at once. Its entry into the heavy-lift market features the largest cargo space available for customers, using a 23-foot diameter fairing, the encapsulating part of the rocket that forms the cone at the top. SpaceX and ULA use 17- to 18-foot-diameter fairings, so New Glenn’s cargo space is roughly double, able to fit up to three school buses, or 28 Tesla roadsters. While Blue Origin has already been approved to bid for future Department of Defense missions under the National Space Security Launch program, it needs to be certified first. But the company already has several government and commercial launches booked. That includes a contract for 12 launches, with an option for an additional 15, for Amazon to send up hundreds of satellites for its Project Kuiper internet constellation that aims to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink. NASA is also relying on Blue Origin for future launches of its human space landing system Blue Moon for the Artemis moon program, which will launch on New Glenn. Local journalism is essential. 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