Jan. 11 (UPI) — Blue Origin is planning to launch its reusable heavy-lift New Glenn rocket for its inaugural voyage at 1 a.m. EST Sunday if weather conditions allow it to proceed.
Blue Origin has a three-hour launch window for the New Glenn rocket’s maiden flight, which originally was scheduled for Friday but was postponed due to weather. New Glenn is at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 36.
The New Glenn rocket is 320 feet tall and has a reusable first stage, much like the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
The rocket’s initial launch was scrubbed due to conditions in the Atlantic Ocean, which prevented deployment of the rocket’s recovery barge that fittingly is named Landing Platform Vessel 1.
The barge will recover the heavy-lift rocket’s first-stage booster, which would land on the barge instead of in the ocean and sinking to the bottom.
The New Glenn rocket is intended to launch satellites during future missions and on its maiden launch will carry a prototype of the Blue Ring Pathfinder spacecraft to test its communications capabilities with Earth while in orbit for six hours.
“The mission will also test its in-space telemetry, tracking and command hardware, and ground-based radiometric tracking that will be used on the future Blue Ring production space vehicle,” Blue Origin officials said. “The Pathfinder will remain onboard New Glenn’s second stage for the duration of an expected six-hour mission.”
The weather forecast suggests between an 85% and 90% likelihood that Sunday morning’s launch will proceed as scheduled.
Blue Origin will stream the launch live starting at midnight. So will Space.com.
Blue Origin has launched a smaller reusable rocket named the New Shepard, which is a suborbital tourism vehicle.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos founded Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin Enterprises in 2000.
