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Blue Origin's 320-foot-tall "New Glenn" rocket was expected to launch as early as Jan. 10—but issues have repeatedly delayed its liftoff in Florida.
On Jan. 9, Blue Origin said it was moving its launch to Sunday because of "a high sea state in the Atlantic where we hope to land our booster." On Saturday, the launch was delayed again to early Monday morning because sea conditions hadn't calmed enough for a launch.
The main goal of this launch is to get the New Glenn rocket to reach Earth's orbit safely. "Anything beyond that is icing on the cake," the Jeff Bezos-owned company wrote around 1 a.m. Monday.
But during the livestream, the countdown was repeatedly rolled back with no explanation or mission control audio. Around 3 a.m. ET Monday morning, Blue Origin shared that it was postponing the launch yet again, this time due to "a vehicle subsystem issue." A new launch time has not yet been shared on the company's X account or blog at time of writing.
Blue Origin is a main competitor to SpaceX, Elon Musk's private space company that operates the Starlink satellite internet service. The New Glenn launch is important for Amazon's satellite internet service, Project Kuiper, which could eventually compete with SpaceX's Starlink. Project Kuiper launches have been delayed a number of times before.
SpaceX completed many Falcon 9 rocket launches last year to launch new Starlink satellites into Earth's orbit (there are nearly 7,000 Starlink satellites in space now). Last year, Blue Origin wanted to cap SpaceX's Starship launches, which Musk responded to by threatening to sue the company.
In May, Blue Origin completed its first manned space flight in two years, launching from Texas with six passengers.