An icy vent line may have caused Blue Origin to scrub debut launch of New Glenn

COCOA BEACH, Fla.—With 45 minutes left in a three-hour launch window, Blue Origin scrubbed its first attempt to launch the massive New Glenn rocket early on Monday morning

Throughout the window, which opened at 1 am ET (06:00 UTC), the company continued to reset the countdown clock as launch engineers worked technical issues with the rocket.

Officially, both on its live webcast as well as on social media following the scrub, Blue Origin was vague about the cause of the delayed launch attempt.

“We’re standing down on today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window,” the company said. “We’re reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt.”

According to sources, the primary problem was likely ice clogging one of the vent lines that carry pressurized gas away from the vehicle. Several attempts were made to melt the ice, but these efforts were not successful, necessitating the scrub. Hopefully Blue Origin will provide more information about the cause of the scrub in the coming days.

To land, or not to land?

Additionally there appears to have been a problem with at least one of the auxiliary power units that provide power to the rocket after the engines shut off. One of the primary purposes of these APUs is to power the deployment of landing legs needed to make a soft touchdown on the company’s droneship, Jacklyn. It was not immediately clear early Monday whether Blue Origin would have pressed ahead with the launch, should they have had to land the first stage in the ocean, rather than attempting a barge landing.