Blue Origin, the private space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has pulled a major test of its rocket.
The rocket had a technical issue that meant it was unable to launch in its allotted window on Monday morning because of a “few anomalies”, the company said.
“We’re standing down on today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window,” it announced. “We’re reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt.”
Blue Origin hopes to offer private space launches of the kind provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, though it has so far been notably behind its competitor. Monday’s launch would have seen the company’s New Glenn rocket head into orbit for the first time.
Blue Origin did not immediately set a new launch date, saying the team needed more time to resolve the problem.
The test flight had already been delayed by 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 is named after the first American to orbit Earth, John Glenn.
It is five times taller than Blue Origin‘s New Shepard rocket that carries paying customers to the edge of space from Texas.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos founded the company 25 years ago. He took part in Monday’s countdown from Mission Control, located at the rocket factory just outside the gates of Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre about 50 miles east of Orlando, Florida.
No matter what happens, Mr Bezos said Sunday evening, “we’re going to pick ourselves up and keep going”.
Additional reporting by agencies
