Blue Origin to Launch New Rocket Next Year

Aerospace company Blue Origin is planning to launch its New Glenn orbital rocket for the first time next year, the company's chief executive told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

"I think everybody wants New Glenn to fly at the earliest time possible. Everybody does," said Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith. "We're not going to sacrifice doing it right."

Smith said that the company plans to launch the New Glenn rocket from its Cape Canaveral launching pad, which the Journal notes it is "rugged-but-unused."

Jarrett Jones, the senior vice president overseeing the New Glenn, added that the company expects the launch to be a success.

"Even though it's our initial launch, our position isn't to hope," Jones said.

CNBC reported last month that a Blue Origin test launch of a BE-4 engine resulted in an explosion that destroyed the engine and damaged the test stand.

"No personnel were injured and we are currently assessing root cause," Blue Origin said at the time via a spokesperson. "We already have proximate cause and are working on remedial actions."

Although billionaire Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin over two decades ago, the company has fallen behind SpaceX, the rival aerospace company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, which has already conducted almost 250 launches of its Falcon rockets, some on human space missions.

"Many of us think of Blue Origin as really, truly a potential competitor to SpaceX," Thomas Zurbuchen, who was the top science administrator at National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told the Journal in an interview. "I think for many of us there's a little bit of a sense of anxiety."

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