Over the course of just a few hours today, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture made two adjustments to the schedule for launching its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket to orbit for the first time.
At first, Blue Origin said it would attempt liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 36 tonight, during a three-hour launch window beginning at 1 a.m. ET Jan. 14 (10 p.m. PT Jan. 13). But less than two and a half hours later, the company pushed back the launch date to the same time frame early Jan. 16 ET (late Jan. 15 PT).
No reason was immediately given for the quick change, but in today’s first announcement, Blue Origin acknowledged that a “poor weather forecast at LC-36 could result in missing” tonight’s launch window.
