New Glenn Launch: NASA’s Getaway Mission to Mars and Jeff Bezos’ Next Big Rocket Test Delayed

New Glenn, the massive orbital rocket designed by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to rival SpaceX’s dominant Falcon rockets, is back for its second launch – this time with a mission to send twin spacecraft on a long, winding journey to Mars.

The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket was scheduled to blast off from the Cape Canaveral space station in Florida during an 88-minute launch window that opened Sunday at 2:45 p.m. ET. But Blue Origin revealed during a live stream that cloud cover spread across the area, preventing takeoff. (Rockets often seek to avoid clouds, because flying through an electrified cloud can actually trigger lightning.)

“We are reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt based on weather forecasts,” the company said in a social media post.

Blue Origin officials previously indicated they had the option to try again during a Monday launch window. The weather forecast for this opportunity, however, appeared “somewhat consistent” with Sunday’s conditions, Laura Maginnis, New Glenn’s vice president of mission management, noted during a news conference Saturday.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently announced it would halt commercial rocket launches between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. ET, starting Monday, to ease the burden on air traffic controllers amid the government shutdown.

“We’re working closely with our partners at the FAA and with the NASA team to make sure that we honor and of course meet the airspace expectations,” Maginnis said.

Blue Origin’s Monday launch window would be between 2:40 p.m. and 4:08 p.m. ET, according to a press release.

Blue Origin is also attempting to land and recover New Glenn’s first stage booster, which is the lowest part of the rocket that provides initial power at liftoff, on a sea barge called Jacklyn. Much like Blue Origin’s main competitor, SpaceX – which has long been a dominant force in the commercial launch business – Blue Origin rockets are designed to be partially reused to reduce costs.

Blue Origin had hoped to successfully make its first attempt at a booster landing during New Glenn’s maiden orbital flight in January, but the engines failed to re-ignite properly, causing the rocket to veer off course.

However, the primary mission of Blue Origin’s January launch — putting a test satellite called the Blue Ring Pathfinder into orbit — went off without a hitch, prompting the company to declare the flight a success.

But Blue Origin considers the safe recovery and reuse of its rocket propellants to be crucial to its business model.

Maginnis said during Saturday’s press conference that investigating why the booster failed to make a successful landing in January and implementing fixes to help it succeed this time were the main reasons Blue Origin waited nearly 10 months to attempt a second launch of New Glenn.

“We have incorporated a number of changes to our thruster management system, as well as some minor hardware modifications, to increase our chances of landing this thruster,” Maginnis said.

But, she added, “if we don’t land the booster, it doesn’t matter. We have several other vehicles in production.”

Maginnis declined to say how many boosters Blue Origin has in production.

New Glenn’s next flight, scheduled for this year but not yet having a target launch date, is expected to deliver a Blue Origin-designed lunar lander called Mark 1 to the Moon’s surface.

After taking flight, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will place twin satellites on a trajectory toward deep space. The orbiters are expected to linger on hold before heading to Mars next year, when the Red Planet will be better aligned for a less fuel-intensive journey.

The mission, called Escapade – short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration Dynamics Explorers – is a low-cost planetary science project funded by NASA and led by the University of California, Berkeley, with support from commercial companies Advanced Space and Rocket Lab.

If all goes as planned, the vehicles will arrive in Martian orbit in 2027.

Once there, the spacecraft will work in tandem to study why the planet began losing its atmosphere billions of years ago – and investigate how its harsh climate might affect future explorers.

“We will make the space weather measurements we need to fully understand the system to predict solar storms whose radiation could harm astronauts on the surface of Mars or in orbit,” mission principal investigator Robert Lillis of the UC Berkeley Space Science Laboratory said in a statement.

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