We'll have to wait a little longer to see Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket lift off for the first time.
Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, aimed to launch its first New Glenn heavy-lift rocket from Florida's Space Coast this morning (Jan. 13), during a three-hour window that opened at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT).
Blue Origin pushed the planned launch time back multiple times before finally calling the attempt off at around 3:10 a.m. EST (0810 GMT).
"We’re standing down on today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window. We’re reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt," the company announced via X.
That post did not identify the subsystem or the issue, and neither did the hosts of the company's launch webcast.
Related: Blue Origin: Everything you need to know about the private spaceflight company
On Monday evening, the company revealed the cause of the scrub to be "ice forming in a purge line on an auxiliary power unit that powers some of our hydraulic systems." That X post with that news also announced a new launch target: Tuesday morning (Jan. 14), during a three-hour window that opens at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT). A few hours later on Monday, however, Blue Origin pushed the try back to Thursday morning (Jan. 16), during that same window.
This isn't the first launch delay for the 320-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn, which features a reusable first stage.
Blue Origin originally aimed to fly this debut mission, which it calls NG-1, on Friday (Jan. 10) but pushed the try back 72 hours due to rough seas in the patch of the Atlantic Ocean where the rocket's first stage is expected to land. (If all goes according to plan, that touchdown will occur on a ship nicknamed Jacklyn, after Bezos' mother.)
Blue Origin has a few days to address the issue; the current NG-1 launch window runs through Jan. 16. The test flight will launch a pathfinder version of Blue Ring, a new spacecraft platform the company has built.
New Glenn, which has been in development for about a decade, is Blue Origin's first orbital-class rocket. The company already flies a reusable suborbital vehicle called New Shepard, which takes people and payloads on brief trips to space.
Editor's note: This story was updated at 7:25 p.m. ET on Jan. 13 with the cause of that day's launch scrub and the new target date of Jan. 14, then again at 9:54 p.m. ET with the new target date of Jan. 16.
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