The launch of a huge, partially reusable rocket, built by Jeff Bezos’s company, has been called off this morning after hours of delays.
The 98-metre rocket, called New Glenn, is around as tall as Big Ben. It was set to carry up to 45 tonnes of tech to low Earth orbit.
However, the team at Blue Origin, Amazon founder Mr Bezos’s space technology company, confirmed this morning that the launch was called off.
The decision came following a series of delays due to unspecified issues.
As it happened: See our coverage from the launch
The team said they would work out a new date for lift-off, adding: “We can’t wait to get right back here for our next launch attempt.”
The team said earlier this morning that they were “working through anomalies”.
Speaking in an interview before the launch, Mr Bezos said “the thing we’re most nervous about is the booster landing”.
“Clearly on a first flight you could have an anomaly at any mission phase, so anything could happen,” he said.
New Glenn’s builders hope it will challenge SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which has become the go-to workhorse to get heavy cargo into space.
However, it has taken Blue Origin years to get to this point.
They started developing the orbital rocket almost a decade ago, but setbacks and delays pushed back its maiden voyage.
Ahead of the launch, SpaceX founder and X owner Elon Musk, shared his support, writing “good luck” in a response to a post by Blue Origin on his platform.
Reusable first stage
The rocket – named New Glenn in honour of NASA astronaut John Glenn, has two stages, one of which is reusable.
The first, reusable stage will use seven engines to blast the rocket off the launch pad into higher, thinner air and then drop back to Earth to land on a sea platform called Jacklyn.
