Bezos’s Blue Origin schedules, then delays first orbital launch

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on the launch pad at the Cape Canaveral space force station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 27 December 2024. Photograph: Blue Origin/AFP/Getty Images

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin announced it would launch its first orbital rocket “no earlier than Friday”, a pivotal moment in the commercial space race currently dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Then the Amazon founder’s rocket company delayed the launch until at least Sunday 12 January due to rough seas.

Named New Glenn, the rocket is slated to lift off from the Cape Canaveral space force station in Florida. A statement from the company read: “We’re shifting our NG-1 launch date to no earlier than January 12 due to a high sea state in the Atlantic, where we hope to land our booster.”