Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is set to launch its first orbital rocket, New Glenn, as early as Friday, January 10, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission, called NG-1, will carry a prototype of Blue Ring, a US Defense Department-funded spacecraft designed to be a versatile satellite deployment platform. The launch is a major milestone for Blue Origin, which has previously focused on suborbital flights with its New Shepard rocket.
The NG-1 mission will mark Blue Origin’s entry into the commercial launch market, which is currently dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The launch window is set to open at 1:00 am (0600 GMT) on Friday, and the six-hour test flight will test the capabilities of the New Glenn rocket.
Blue Origin’s senior vice president, Jarrett Jones, said, “This is our first flight and we’ve prepared rigorously for it. But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations are a replacement for flying this rocket. It’s time to fly. No matter what happens, we’ll learn, refine, and apply that knowledge to our next launch.”
The successful launch would be a significant achievement for Blue Origin and its founder, Jeff Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, as he seeks to challenge SpaceX’s dominance in the commercial space sector.