This handout photo courtesy of Blue Origin shows the New Glenn rocket on the launch pad at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on December 27, 2024. (Photo by HANDOUT / BLUE ORIGIN / AFP)
Cape Canaveral: A quarter of a century after its founding, Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin is finally ready for its maiden orbital voyage on Sunday with a brand new rocket the company hopes will shake up the commercial space race.
Named New Glenn after a legendary astronaut, it stands 320 feet (98 meters) tall, roughly equivalent to a 32-story building -- and is set to blast off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in a launch window that opens at 1:00 am (0600 GMT).
"Pointy end up!" the company's CEO, Dave Limp posted on X alongside photos of the gleaming white behemoth.
With the mission, dubbed NG-1, Bezos, the world's second-richest man, is taking direct aim at the world's wealthiest: Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX dominates the orbital launch market through its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
These serve the commercial sector, the Pentagon, and NASA -- including, crucially, ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
"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.
SpaceX, meanwhile, is planning the next orbital test of Starship -- its gargantuan new-generation rocket -- the very next day, upping the sense of high-stakes rivalry.
