Bezos-backed rocket launch delayed til next year

Blue Origin, a space venture backed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, said Thursday the launch of its New Glenn rocket has been delayed until the fourth quarter of next year.

“As major progress is being made on the New Glenn launch vehicle and its Cape Canaveral facilities, the schedule has been refined to match the demand of Blue Origin’s commercial customers,” the company said in a statement. “The current target for New Glenn’s maiden flight is Q4 2022. The Blue Origin team has been in contact with all of our customers to ensure this baseline meets their launch needs.”

New Glenn was originally scheduled to launch later this year.

“This updated maiden flight target follows the recent Space Force decision to not select New Glenn for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 Launch Services Procurement (LSP),” Blue Origin added.

SpaceX was ultimately awarded that contract, along with U.S.-based United Launch Alliance.

Blue Origin was one of three companies picked by NASA last year to design and develop human landing systems to land the first woman and the next man on the moon. Alabama-based Dynetics and SpaceX were also chosen.

Blue Origin launched its New Shepard suborbital rocket in October as part of a practice to someday land on the moon. The launch took place over West Texas, marking the 13th New Shepard launch for the company.