The space company Blue Origin got a ship into Earth’s orbit for the first time

A space company Blue Originin was about to launch its new launch vehicle New Glenn for the first time into space on Monday morning. However, the test flight was postponed due to technical problems.

The 98-meter-high launch vehicle was scheduled to take off for its first flight after eight o’clock Finnish time. The departure was postponed several times throughout the morning, and finally it was decided to move it completely to another day.

Blue Origin did not immediately say when it plans to attempt the test flight again. The company announced in the X message service that it is investigating the possibilities for the next launch attempt.

Provided the test flight will soon be successful, it promises that Blue Origin will soon start taking satellites and other cargo into space. In that case, another private space company, Space X, would have a competitor.

New Glenn’s first stage is reusable. According to the company, one and the same stage of the New Glenn launch vehicle lasts for at least 25 launches.

Reuse reduces the costs of space flights and speeds up the pace of flights. The same method has been used successfully Space X for years now.

A space company Blue Origin has been planning a launch vehicle since 2013.

Blue Origin was founded by a billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2000. Bezos is known as the founder of the e-commerce company Amazon.

Glenn is designed to take payloads of up to 45 tons into low Earth orbit. This test flight was not intended to carry cargo.

A spaceship is planned for the nose of the rocket Blue Ringwhich was also not yet intended to fly independently. The test flight was supposed to include Blue Ring’s equipment.

Blue Ring can transport cargo in space, for example to the ISS space station, three tons at a time.

Before long, Blue Origin plans to harness New Glenn to take satellites into space. Bezos’ company Amazon has already booked flights from New Glenn.

Amazon has, for example Kuiper handlefor which New Glenn would be needed. Kuiper aims to send even thousands of satellites into space. SpaceX’s Starlink has already done the same.

Before New Glenn Blue Origin already has its own spacecraft, a small one New Shepard. It has taken space tourists to an altitude of more than a hundred kilometers. One hundred kilometers is considered the limit of space.

However, New Shepard will never reach Earth orbit. It is estimated that its maximum flight height would be around 150 kilometers.

The lowest orbits of satellites orbiting the Earth are usually at an altitude of 700 to 1,700 kilometers. However, for example, the space station ISS orbits the Earth at an altitude of only about 340 kilometers.

In 2021, New Shepard took its owner Jeff Bezos and three other space tourists to an altitude of about 107 kilometers for the first time.

Since then, New Shepard has flown eight other formations to the same altitudes, most recently in November 2024.

Launcher New Glenn got its name astronaut John Glenn (1921–2016) according to

He was only the third US astronaut at the time. And the first American, which traveled the entire globe in his Friendship 7 capsule in February 1962.

Glenn flew into space again as a space shuttle astronaut in 1998. He was 77 years old then. Glenn is still the oldest person to walk in space.

Correction on January 13, 4:15 p.m.: John Glenn is not the oldest man in space, as mentioned in the story. Former test pilot Ed Dwight visited space in May 2024 at the age of over 90, at an altitude of over a hundred kilometers. Glenn, on the other hand, orbited the Earth at the age of 77.