Blue Origin had to call off the debut launch of its massive New Glenn rocket due to technical trouble. The 320-foot (98-meter) rocket was set to launch a prototype satellite from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, but an unspecified issue arose in the final minutes of the countdown, leading to the cancellation. Launch controllers had to drain all the fuel from the rocket after halting the countdown clock.
A new launch date has not been set as the team needs more time to resolve the problem. The test flight had already faced delays due to rough seas that posed a risk to the company’s plan to land the first-stage booster on a floating platform in the Atlantic.
New Glenn, named after the first American to orbit Earth, John Glenn, stands five times taller than Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, which carries paying customers to the edge of space from Texas.
Blue Origin, founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos 25 years ago, had Bezos participating in Monday's countdown from Mission Control located at the rocket factory just outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Orlando, Florida.
Despite the setback, Bezos expressed determination, stating, “we’re going to pick ourselves up and keep going.”
