Space Rivals: Blue Origin and SpaceX Face Delays

Blue Origin is gearing up to send its brand-new New Glenn rocket into space on Monday morning. This mammoth rocket, standing at 320 feet tall, is ready to blast off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Originally set for Friday, the launch was pushed back due to weather concerns. Blue Origin has a three-hour window starting at 1 a. m. EST for this historic moment. The New Glenn rocket is designed to be reusable, similar to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. This means it can land back on Earth after sending payloads into space. For this maiden voyage, the rocket aims to launch a prototype of the Blue Ring Pathfinder spacecraft. This test will check how well the spacecraft can communicate with Earth while in orbit for six hours. Weather issues also delayed the deployment of the rocket's recovery barge, named Landing Platform Vessel 1. This barge is crucial for retrieving the first-stage booster of the New Glenn rocket after it separates. Instead of plunging into the ocean, the booster will land safely on the barge. Blue Origin, founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos in 2000, has already launched a smaller reusable rocket called New Shepard for suborbital tourism. The company will live-stream the New Glenn launch starting at midnight, along with Space. com. In the same week, SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, has delayed the seventh test flight of its Starship to January 15. This delay means that the Starship won't be launching on the same day as the New Glenn, avoiding a potential head-to-head competition. SpaceX announced the delay on Musk's X social media platform late Saturday but didn't provide a specific reason.