Postponement of the first launch of Jeff Bezos’ giant rocket

The maiden flight of the giant New Glenn rocket from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ company will have to wait a little longer: his company Blue Origin canceled the launch due to unspecified technical problems.

Blue Origin was to launch its large New Glenn rocket for the first time on Monday, an inaugural flight that looks like a turning point for the company founded by the American billionaire, and potentially the private space industry.

“We are abandoning the launch attempt to resolve a vehicle subsystem problem that would take us beyond our firing window,” said Ariane Cornell, a Blue Origin executive, during a live broadcast to which attended by hundreds of thousands of spectators.

This rocket, which took years to design and whose launch has already been postponed multiple times, measures 98 meters, the size of a building of around 30 floors.

The goal is clear: “Reach orbit. Anything that goes beyond that is a bonus,” boasted David Limp, CEO of Blue Origin.

If the company of the founder of Amazon has already been taking tourists for a few minutes into space for years thanks to its smaller New Shepard rocket, it has so far not carried out any flight into orbit.

With New Glenn, Blue Origin aims to catch up with its great rival SpaceX, which belongs to another American billionaire, Elon Musk.

Elon Musk had also wished “good luck” to Blue Origin on the social network X.

The Tesla boss’s company has dominated the commercial space market for years with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and is now developing the largest rocket ever created: Starship.

Coincidence or not with the calendar, SpaceX intends to conduct the seventh test flight of its mega-rocket later this week.

With New Glenn, which is a “heavy launcher”, Blue Origin would like to compete with SpaceX on its field: the launch of commercial and military satellites into orbit, but also ships and astronauts.

Its rocket must be able to carry up to 45 tonnes into low orbit. This is more than double that of Falcon 9, but less than Falcon Heavy (63.8 tonnes).

“It’s a good thing to have competition, to have choice,” insists George Nield, president of a company promoting private space activities.

“This is very important for the commercial space industry, but also for the government and NASA” because it not only reduces costs, but also offers a plan B “in the event of a problem with a device”, he said.

Blue Origin has already signed contracts with several customers, including the US space agency for an unmanned mission to Mars, and the US government for national security missions.

On the commercial side, it plans to deploy internet satellites for several companies.

It should also, like SpaceX with Starlink, be responsible for launching satellites from the Amazon group. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, the two richest men in the world, are also fighting in the field of satellite internet.

The similarities between the two private space giants do not stop there. Like the Falcon 9, New Glenn is designed to be partly reusable.

During this inaugural mission, which was to last approximately six hours, Blue Origin intended to attempt to recover the first stage of its rocket.

The company has already managed to land its New Shepard rocket in Texas. But this time, it intended to attempt a controlled landing on a barge at sea, a maneuver similar to that achieved by SpaceX with its Falcon 9 rocket.

“An extremely complicated process,” according to Elliott Bryner, professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

But while the race for the privatization and militarization of space is in full swing, this process which makes it possible to “reuse large parts of rockets” is crucial because it allows both “to offer access to space at a much lower price” and to accelerate the pace of launches, he points out to AFP.