Blue Origin has pushed the return to flight of its New Glenn rocket to January 2027, the latest delay after a major explosion earlier this year damaged its only launchpad in Florida, according to an internal memo from chief executive Dave Limp seen by Reuters and first reported by the Financial Times on November 5.
The heavy-lift rocket has been grounded since it exploded in May during a ground test on the company's launchpad at Cape Canaveral, just days before it was set to carry Amazon satellites into orbit. Limp told employees that summer weather had slowed the rebuild, but that the company had repaired and restacked the launchpad's Vehicle Access Tower and restored the launch bridge. "We're proactively updating our anticipated launch date to January 2027," the memo said.
The new date is roughly ten days beyond the company's most recent target. Founder Jeff Bezos had told Fox News in October that the rocket was likely to fly on "probably December 31," and Limp had said a month after the explosion that the company still aimed to fly again before the end of the year. The January target moves the return into the next calendar year.
The delay emerged as Blue Origin unveiled new hardware for the rocket: GS3, a third stage designed for missions including direct injection into geostationary orbit, and Northstar, a booster engine the company says has half the parts and 30 percent less mass than its BE-4 engine. GS3 is already under contract for a cislunar mission with a government customer scheduled to launch in 2028.
Returning New Glenn to flight matters well beyond Blue Origin. The rocket is contracted to carry Amazon's next-generation Leo broadband satellites, and it is also expected to play a role in NASA's crewed Artemis III mission, targeted for the summer of 2027. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman praised Blue Origin and the speed with which it has been moving toward the launch. Blue Origin has not announced a specific launch date in January.
