The company said it would aim for early Thursday morning at the earliest, with a new three-hour window starting at 1:00 am (0600 GMT).
An initial test launch of the towering 320-foot (98-meter) rocket, dubbed New Glenn in honor of legendary American astronaut John Glenn, was scrubbed early Monday morning after repeated halts during the countdown.
The company later said it had discovered an icing issue on a purge line and would aim for a possible early Tuesday morning launch, but that weather conditions were unfavorable.
Shortly after 9:00 pm Monday (0200 GMT Tuesday), Blue Origin announced the launch had been postponed.
With the mission, dubbed NG-1, Amazon founder Bezos is taking aim at the only man in the world wealthier than him: fellow tech innovator Elon Musk.
Musk’s company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its prolific Falcon 9 rockets, which have become vital for the commercial sector, Pentagon and NASA.
“SpaceX has for the past several years been pretty much the only game in town, and so having a competitor… this is great,” G. Scott Hubbard, a retired senior NASA official, told AFP, expecting the competition to drive down costs.
Upping the high-stakes rivalry, SpaceX also plans another orbital test later this week of Starship — its gargantuan new-generation rocket.
Landing attempt
