**Blue Origin Delays First Flight of Reusable Rocket**
Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, was set to launch its reusable rocket, New Glenn, into space on January 13th. However, the flight was postponed due to technical reasons. This would have been the first test flight since New Glenn’s development was announced in 2016. Despite the postponement, the impending launch of New Glenn sets the stage for Blue Origin to challenge SpaceX, founded by Tesla’s Elon Musk, in the commercial space market.
**Rocket Landing in the Atlantic and Multi-Purpose Spacecraft Testing Planned**
The New Glenn rocket was scheduled for launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, but repeated 30-minute delays ultimately led to the launch being called off around 3 AM. Blue Origin only disclosed the delay was due to “issues with the rocket’s subsystems” without giving further specifics. The company can attempt to launch the rocket until January 16th, though no new date has been announced yet.
The New Glenn is a two-stage rocket, standing 98 meters tall with a diameter of 7 meters. The first stage is reusable for up to 25 flights. After the planned launch, the first stage would separate and land on a drone ship called “Jacklyn” in the Atlantic Ocean, using a precision guidance system.
The major focus of this test flight is on whether the reusable first stage lands and is recovered successfully. Until now, SpaceX has been the only company to consistently achieve this. To convey the challenging odds, Blue Origin named the first stage “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,” a reference to a famous line from the 1994 movie “Dumb and Dumber,” reflecting hope in the face of slim odds.
The New Glenn is designed to carry payloads up to 45 tons to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and 13 tons to geostationary orbit (GEO). A model of Blue Origin’s multi-purpose space transport platform, the Blue Ring Pathfinder, is aboard New Glenn. Blue Ring is intended for future customer payload deliveries to various destinations, including the moon and Mars. This test aims to assess technologies like orbit-to-ground communication and remote sensing in space.
**Challenge by an Underdog Known for Space Tourism**
The commercial private space market has long been dominated by SpaceX. Since its first successful launch of “Falcon 1” in 2008, SpaceX launched 131 rockets in the past year, deploying astronauts, exploration probes, and Starlink satellites to space. Of these, 128 launches used the reusable Falcon 9 rocket, with a success rate of 99%. In contrast, while Blue Origin had successfully landed its suborbital reusable rocket “New Shepard” back in 2015, it focused on space tourism, including sending celebrities on short trips.
Should Blue Origin succeed in launching New Glenn, it would emerge as a serious contender to SpaceX. New Glenn is considered an advancement over Falcon 9, being 28 meters taller and 2 meters wider, which makes it more suitable for transporting larger payloads. While both New Glenn and Falcon 9 are estimated to cost between $60 million and $70 million per launch, New Glenn can deliver more payload per dollar spent, offering a competitive edge.
Blue Origin’s focus on payload size aligns with Bezos’s vision for space, which includes moving industries that cause environmental pollution off Earth to keep it a “clean region for humanity.” Conversely, Musk’s establishment of SpaceX aimed at enabling human migration to Mars to escape potential catastrophic events on Earth, emphasizing the reduction of launch costs through continuous innovation.
**Starlink vs. Kuiper: A New Battle in Satellite Communications**
Blue Origin is expected to expand its presence in the private commercial space market with New Glenn launches. It plays a crucial role in the company’s plans to build the “Orbital Reef” space station, anticipated to eventually replace the International Space Station (ISS). This project is in partnership with U.S. companies like Sierra Space and Boeing. The U.S. Space Force has also selected Blue Origin, along with SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, entailing space launches of security satellites worth $5.6 billion from 2025 to 2029.
A competitive race is expected to heat up between Blue Origin and SpaceX in the low-Earth orbit satellite communications market. SpaceX employs Falcon 9 rockets to deploy more than 6,000 Starlink satellites, with plans to expand to 12,000 by 2027. Blue Origin aims to launch over 3,200 communications satellites for its “Project Kuiper,” directly competing with Starlink. This competition is anticipated to drive technological innovation and cost reductions, providing consumers with better services. According to Geum-o Lee, a chief researcher at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Bezos continues to firmly invest $1 billion annually into Blue Origin, reflecting the growing role of private enterprises in the “New Space” age of space development.