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Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin has delayed a return to flight for its flagship New Glenn rocket to January 2027, later than its earlier target of the end of this year, as it rushes to recover from a major explosion in May.
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp told employees in a memo Wednesday that the company’s launch timing slipped as a result of delays with reconstructing its Cape Canaveral launch pad, including bad weather over the summer.
“This small adjustment doesn’t diminish what we’ve accomplished or the importance of the work still ahead,” Limp wrote in the memo, which was viewed by CNBC. “Returning New Glenn to flight remains our top priority — it’s worth it.”
The Financial Times earlier reported the memo. The January 2027 timeframe is about 10 days later than Blue Origin’s earlier launch target, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC.
The New Glenn explosion in May, which occurred during a hot-fire test, badly damaged Blue Origin’s Florida launchpad. The company was slated to deploy 48 satellites for Amazon‘s Leo internet-from-space service just a few days later.
Since then, the company has moved swiftly to repair the launch facility and reworked its pad configuration. Bezos told Fox News last month that the company was still expecting New Glenn to fly again in December.
Limp said Blue Origin has made great progress on the recovery, but he noted that “rebuilding at this pace hasn’t been easy.”
“Your collective work on our return to flight has been nothing short of remarkable,” Limp wrote. “In just six months, Team Blue has accomplished what many thought would take years.”
The mishap was inconveniently timed, as Blue Origin has been working to ramp up its launch cadence in an effort to compete with its chief rival, Elon Musk‘s SpaceX, for commercial and government customers.
The New Glenn delays have hampered Amazon’s Leo constellation buildout, for which it relies on Blue Origin for a portion of its launches. Amazon has turned to other providers including United Launch Alliance and Arianespace in the interim, especially as SpaceX has phased out Falcon 9 launches to prioritize testing its enormous Starship rocket.
NASA has also tapped Blue Origin for several contracts in the agency’s Artemis return-to-the-moon program, including a lunar lander.
The company announced new investments in its Florida launch facilities last month with the goal of supporting multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.
