CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – Origin Blue It canceled the maiden launch of its new rocket early Monday due to technical problems.
The 320-foot (98-meter) New Glenn rocket was scheduled to blast off before dawn with a prototype satellite from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. But the launch controllers had to deal with an unspecified rocket problem in the final minutes of the countdown and time ran out. Once the countdown clock stopped, they immediately began draining all the fuel from the rocket.
Blue Origin did not immediately set a new launch date, saying the team needed more time to resolve the issue.
The test flight had already been delayed by rough seas, jeopardizing 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 the Earth, John Glenn. It’s five times taller than Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, which takes paying customers from Texas to the edge of space.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos founded the company 25 years ago. He took part in Monday’s countdown from Mission Control, located in the rocket factory outside the gates of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, about 80 miles east of Orlando.
Whatever happens, Bezos said Sunday afternoon, “We’re going to pick ourselves up and keep going.”
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