Billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos was set to celebrate his 61st birthday in grand fashion with the heavy-lift orbital launch of the New Glenn rocket on Jan. 12. But multiple delays have now derailed those plans.
Bezos’ Blue Origin space technology company rescheduled New Glenn’s original Jan. 10 launch date due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The Amazon co-founder expressed his excitement for the NG-1 mission by sharing a photograph of the rocket’s thrusters to his X account on that same day. He captioned the image, “Leave before launch.”
“Next stop launch,” Bezos declared in a separate Instagram caption and on X, teasing the New Glenn takeoff by posting a video of an integrated launch vehicle hotfire test to social media on Dec. 27, 2024.
His big tech competitor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk, offered well-wishes by replying, “Godspeed!”
Blue Origin set Jan. 13 as the backup New Glenn NG-1 mission date. Ice forming in a purge line on an auxiliary power unit also blocked that liftoff.
They announced on X at 3:09 a.m. ET that day that the launch had been canceled in order “to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window.”
Around six hours later, Blue Origin announced, “We’re moving our NG-1 launch to no earlier than Thursday, January 16. The three-hour launch window opens at 1 a.m. EST (0600 UTC).
The New Glenn rocket was named after the late John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit Earth in 1962. Glenn later served as a U.S. senator from Ohio from 1974 to 1999.
That hotfire test campaign was described as the final major landmark of the New Glenn’s first flight. It was the first time Blue Origin operated the entire flight vehicle as an integrated system.
“This is a monumental milestone and a glimpse of what’s just around the corner for New Glenn’s first launch,” Jarrett Jones, SVP for Blue Origin’s New Glenn, said in a Dec. 27-dated statement.
Jones continued, “Today’s success proves that our rigorous approach to testing–combined with our incredible tooling and design engineering–is working as intended.”
Despite the setbacks with his latest business venture, fans still seem supportive of Bezos.
One post on X read, “It’s fine to scrub. It’s not ok to not communicate with the audience what is going on in real time. Either trust your employees to monitor the internal communication and tell us what is happening or don’t bother having a launch broadcast.”
Another said, “Better safe than sorry, first times are always the messiest but you get better over time.”
A third posted, “Ruh roh this is going to make him even more insecure in his rivalry with Elon and SpaceX.”
Ruh roh this is going to make him even more insecure in his rivalry with Elon and SpaceX
— Karolína Muchová Fan Club (@irvineghost20) January 13, 2025
Musk and Bezos’ feud goes back years and reignites every so often. But more recently their debate has been competing in the billionaire space race.
In addition to carrying payload to orbit and beyond, the New Glenn will also be used for Department of Defense missions, NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars, and to launch Amazon’s Kuiper internet satellites.
Musk’s Falcon 9 is reusable and will be used to transport a crew of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station as well as launch satellites into low Earth orbit, such as for his Starlink internet service.
Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, has also been a vocal supporter of his space travel ambitions.
“Jeff actually went to space. He was the first person to go to space on his rocket, New Shepard,” Sánchez stated during an interview with “Good Day LA” in September 2024.
The former “Good Day LA” co-host and “Extra” special correspondent also said, “And I’m taking an incredible group of women up to space.”
Additionally, Bezos encouraged Sánchez to write a 32-page, glow-in-the-dark children’s picture book titled “The Fly Who Flew to Space” that landed in bookstores on Sept. 10, 2024.
Sánchez recently marked a birthday as well. The licensed pilot turned 55 on Dec. 19, 2024. She, Bezos, and friends went to see R&B singer Usher perform in Miami as part of the celebration.
However, Sánchez’s night out at the Kaseya Center became online gossip fodder when Bezos was filmed imminently dancing with his wife-to-be and another woman rumored to be movie producer Lydia Kives.
On Dec. 20, Sánchez’ expressed gratitude for her “magical evening.” She posted an Instagram photo carousel that included a group picture with Kives, Katy Perry, Kelly Sawyer, Veronica Smiley Grazer, and Elsa Collins.
Bezos and Sánchez allegedly began dating in 2018 while they both were married to other individuals. Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott (née Tuttle) divorced Bezos in 2019 after a 27-year marriage.
Hollywood agent Patrick Whitesell wed Sánchez in August 2005 and filed for divorce in April 2019. They reached a final settlement in Oct. of that year.
Following the respective splits from their previous spouses, Bezos and Sánchez announced their engagement in May 2023. There is speculation the couple will tie the knot on his $500 million superyacht in Italy by the end of 2025 despite attempts to debunk rumors about their lavish wedding.
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