Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is ready for its maiden orbital journey on the New Glenn rocket. Will this threaten the dominance of Elon Musk's SpaceX in the orbital launch market?
The launch of the Glenn rocket originally scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 12, was postponed by a day due to “unfavorable” sea conditions, Blue Origin said in a post on social media platform X.
The Blue Origin rocket, named after a legendary astronaut, is 98 meters tall, about the size of a 32-story building.
“Pointed End!” Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp wrote on X next to photos of the Glenn rocket.
The mission, dubbed NG-1, will see the Glenn rocket launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Monday.
SpaceX has dominated the orbital launch market in recent years through its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
Elon Musk's space company plans the next orbital test of Starship – its giant next-generation rocket – the next day, heightening the sense of high-stakes rivalry.
“SpaceX has been pretty much the only game in town for the last few years, and so having a competitor… this is great,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP.
Physically, New Glenn dwarfs the 70-meter Falcon 9 and is designed for heavier payloads.
It fits between the Falcon 9 and its big brother, Falcon Heavy, in terms of mass capacity, but has the edge with its wider payload fairing, ideal for carrying bulkier cargo.
If all goes according to plan, Blue Origin will attempt to land the first stage booster shortly after launch on a drone ship named Jacklyn, in honor of Bezos' mother, stationed about 600 miles away in the Atlantic Ocean.
While SpaceX has long made such landings an almost routine spectacle, this will be Blue Origin's first attempt at a landing on the high seas.