'In contact with all customers': Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin delays maiden launch of New Glenn

Jeff Bezos’ space venture Blue origin delayed the maiden launch of its New Glenn rocket by a year after Space Force did not select the heavy-lift rocket for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 Launch Services Procurement. According to a press note, Blue Origin is now targeting the fourth quarter of 2022 for New Glenn’s inaugural launch, having previously set late-2021 as the date. The company said that the updated maiden flight target follows the recent Space Force decision to not select New Glenn for the latest round of national security launch contracts. 

Blue Origin said, “We hope to launch NSSL payloads in the future, and remain committed to serving the U.S. national defense mission”. 

The Pentagon selected SpaceX and ULA over bids from Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman. It is worth noting that the US Department of Defense in August awarded Space X and United Launch Alliance, the latter being the joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, with billions worth of contracts for launches over five years. 

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About New Glenn rocket 

Bezos’ company assisted with the assembling of the Blue Moon lander in 2019 with Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp, and Draper and is now in fierce competition with Dynetics, owned by Leidos Holdings Inc, and Space X to win NASA's contract. NASA, last year, awarded Blue Origin $579 million along with $135 million for Space X to improve on the lunar lander and the Starship system. Additionally, it awarded $253 million to Leidos-owned Dynetics. 

New Glenn is the next-generation rocket that Blue Origin has been developing, with a rocket booster that is designed to land and be reused in a similar way to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy Rockets. Now, Blue Origin expects each New Glenn rocket will be capable of launching and landing 25 times. The rocket would be larger than any other vehicle flying currently.  New Glenn stands about 320 feet tall and is designed to lift about 45,000 kilograms of payload to low Earth Orbit. Blue Origin has built a mockup of the booster stage of New Glenn to run tests ahead of the first launch from Florida.

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