Blue Origin will again attempt to launch its inaugural New Glenn rocket early Thursday morning, weather permitting.
The space company, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, faced literal and figurative headwinds during its first attempts to launch its 30-plus-story rocket from the Cape Canaveral space station.
The latest launch attempt is scheduled to lift off from Launch Complex 36 during a three-hour window that opens at 1:00 a.m. EST (0600 UTC). Spaceflight Now will have live coverage starting 90 minutes before launch.
The weather on the pad does not appear ideal for a Thursday morning launch, but it would improve within 24 hours, according to 45th Weather Squadron launch weather officers.
“A developing area of low pressure located west of the Gulf of Mexico will bring increasing clouds to central Florida today and tonight, with upstream observations and model guidance suggesting a higher risk of thick cloud layer issues compared to yesterday’s forecast for tonight’s launch attempt,” the meteorologists wrote.
“This medium moisture layer is expected to be removed from the parent low and clear by Thursday evening as surface high pressure develops southward into Florida, which will provide an improved weather outlook for the opportunity to emergency launch.”
Blue Origin reported an issue that prevented Monday launch “Ice was forming in a purge line on an auxiliary generator that powers some of (New Glenn’s) hydraulic systems. » Crews worked to resolve this issue during the three-hour window, but were unable to do so in time.
Their launch was again prevented on Tuesday due to bad weather.
One of the objectives of the NG-1 mission is to attempt to land the first stage booster, named “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance”, on Blue Origin’s landing ship, named “Jacklyn ”, which is positioned in the Atlantic Ocean.
Launch weather officials predict a “moderate” risk of booster landing during the primary and backup launch windows.
“For booster recovery conditions, seas will rise in the 6 to 7 foot range for the primary window, with similar to slightly lower seas for Friday morning,” meteorologists wrote. “Winds will be acceptable for landing on the primary and backup landing opportunities, although increased winds are expected for the backup day.”
In addition to collecting data on the rocket and launch flow, Blue Origin will also learn more about its orbital space tug, the Blue Ring. Although it will not host or deploy satellites on this mission, it will serve to “validate space-to-ground communications capabilities by sending commands, receiving telemetry data, receiving stored mission data and calculated and carrying out radiometric tracking (for navigation)”.
If all goes as planned with New Glenn’s upper stage, known as Glenn Stage 2 (GS2), it will fly in a highly elliptical orbit in the range of medium Earth orbit, with an apogee of 19,300 km and a perigee of 2,400 km. km with an inclination of 30 degrees.
