Blue Origin’s highly anticipated return to flight was called off at the last minute before its launch yesterday. With a successful launch planned for the 12th of February, the company had hoped to pull off a repeat of its prior successful launch.
However, the launch was scrubbed shortly before launch due to a technical issue. According to Blue Origin, the launch would have sent the New Shepard Rocket to the edge of space carrying payloads from a number of paying customers.
Blue Origin has now delayed the launch indefinately and a new launch date have yet to be determined. This is a major setback for the company, as it takes them away from achieving their goal of taking multiple passengers and commercial payloads to space this year.
The company had announced last month that it was ready to fly a commercial mission, with payloads belonging to customers from around the world, but the technical issue has forced them to put the mission on hold.
Blue Origin had been preparing extensively for an eventual launch, and the company has already conducted successful on-ground tests of its New Shepard suborbital rocket. However, in spite of months of preparation, the technical issue has forced the launch to be scrubbed just moments before takeoff.
Blue Origin’s mission still has not been given a fresh date, but the company has released a statement saying that it hopes to proceed with the mission soon. It is clear that Blue Origin is determined to take passengers and payloads to the brink of space, and the company hopes to achieve its goal in the near future. It will be interesting to see how the company will continue to make progress in its goal of space exploration.