ISTANBUL

The 320-foot New Glenn rocket, named after astronaut John Glenn, was set to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1.00 a.m. local time (0600GMT) on Monday, but its debut was postponed due to technical issues.

“We’re standing down on today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window,” Blue Origin Executive Ariane Cornell said during a livestream watched by hundreds of thousands.

Cornell added: "We are reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt."

Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, has spent the past two decades investing billions annually to establish Blue Origin as a leader in the space industry. Blue Origin’s projects include developing rockets, spacecraft, space stations, and lunar landers.

After a decade of development, the 90-meter-tall New Glenn rocket stands taller than Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon rocket but is smaller than its competitor’s massive Starship.

The company stated on X, “We want to be clear about our objectives. This is our first flight and we’ve prepared rigorously for it,” highlighting that the "key objective" is to achieve a safe orbit.

It added, "Anything beyond that is icing on the cake. We know landing the booster on our first try offshore in the Atlantic is ambitious — but we're going for it."

The company has not yet announced a new launch date, stating that the team needs more time to fix the issue.