WASHINGTON — Blue Origin called off the first attempt to launch its New Glenn rocket Jan. 13 because of an unspecified technical issue.
The company called off the launch of the rocket on a mission designated NG-1 shortly after 3 a.m. Eastern, more than two hours into a three-hour launch window at Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 36. The scrub came after several resets of the countdown clock.
“We’re standing down on today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window. We’re reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt,” the company announced on social media.
The company didn’t elaborate on the issue that caused the scrub or when the company will launch again. During the company’s webcast of the launch, commentators made brief references to anomalies being studied as well as aligning procedures for the rocket’s inaugural launch. Such issues are not uncommon in the first launches of new rockets.
It may be several days before the company can try again, based on range and weather issues. SpaceX, for example, is scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 carrying two lunar landers early Jan. 15, during the window that Blue Origin had been using for New Glenn launches.
Blue Origin had been working towards a launch as soon as Jan. 6 after completing a static-fire test of the rocket’s first stage Dec. 27 at the end of a fueling test and countdown rehearsal. Vehicle readiness and weather conditions at sea, where Blue Origin will attempt a landing of the first stage on a ship, pushed back the launch several days.
This was Blue Origin’s first attempt to launch New Glenn, an orbital rocket under development by the company for more than a decade. In September 2015, the company formally announced plans to develop the rocket, which later was named New Glenn, using Launch Complex 36 and with a new factory built just outside the gates of nearby Kennedy Space Center.
The company once targeted a first launch of New Glenn in 2020, but the schedule for the launch repeatedly slipped. That led to a NASA decision in September 2024 to take a Mars smallsat mission called ESCAPADE off the inaugural launch as the agency concluded the vehicle would not be ready before the launch window for ESCAPADE closed in mid-October.
The payload for NG-1 is what the company calls Blue Ring Pathfinder, which will remain attached to the upper stage. It includes tests of communications equipment that will be used on Blue Ring, the orbital transfer vehicle being developed by Blue Origin.
“Data from the mission will support future production, launch vehicle integration, and on-orbit operations of the Blue Ring space vehicle,” Blue Origin said in a mission overview document, but did elaborate. Once the upper stage is in its planned elliptical medium Earth orbit, mission is scheduled to last less than six hours, according to the company’s NG-1 timeline.
