Blue Origin’s first launch of the New Glenn rocket was canceled due to technical problems just minutes before takeoff in Florida
The rocket, which is a whopping 320 feet tall, was set to launch a prototype satellite from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. But, in the final countdown minutes, the launch controllers spotted a problem and had to stop everything. They even started draining the fuel from the rocket once the countdown was halted.
Blue Origin hasn’t announced a new launch date yet. They mentioned that the team needs more time to figure out what went wrong. This test flight had already faced delays due to rough seas, which could have affected their plans to land the booster on a floating platform in the Atlantic.
By the way, the New Glenn is named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. It’s pretty massive, being five times taller than Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, which takes people to the edge of space from Texas.
Jeff Bezos, who started Blue Origin 25 years ago, was at Mission Control during the countdown. He’s pretty optimistic, saying, “we’re going to pick ourselves up and keep going,” no matter what happens.
