Bezos’ Blue Origin targets Friday for first orbital launch

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin will launch its first orbital rocket “no earlier than Friday,” it said, a defining moment in the commercial space race currently dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Named New Glenn, it is targeted for a liftoff as early as Friday, Jan. 10, from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the company said in a statement late Monday.

“The three-hour launch window opens at 01:00 (0600 GMT),” it added.

The NG-1 mission will carry a prototype of the Blue Ring, a spacecraft funded by the US Department of Defense intended as a versatile satellite installation platform, which will remain aboard the rocket’s second stage during the six-hour test flight.

It will mark Blue Origin’s long-awaited entry into the lucrative orbital launch market after years of suborbital flights with its smaller New Shepard rocket, which carries passengers and payloads on short trips to the edge of space.

“This is our first flight, and we’ve prepared rigorously for it,” New Glenn senior vice president Jarrett Jones said in the statement.

“But no amount of ground testing or mission simulations is a substitute for flying this rocket. It’s time to fly. Whatever happens, we will learn, refine and apply that knowledge to our next launch,” he added.

The milestone will also escalate the rivalry between Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, and Musk, the richest, who has cemented SpaceX’s dominance and is now in President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle.

© 2025 AFP