CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida—The second flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket was postponed again Wednesday as a supercharged wave of magnetized plasma from the Sun enveloped the Earth, triggering colorful auroral displays and concerns over possible impacts to communications, navigation, and power grids.
Solar storms like the one this week can also affect satellite operations. That is the worry that caused NASA to hold off on launching a pair of science probes from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on Wednesday aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
In a statement, Blue Origin said NASA, its customer on the upcoming launch, decided to postpone the mission to send the agency’s two ESCAPADE spacecraft on a journey to Mars.
“New Glenn is ready to launch,” Blue Origin wrote on X. “However, due to highly elevated solar activity and its potential effects on the ESCAPADE spacecraft, NASA is postponing launch until space weather conditions improve. We are currently assessing opportunities to establish our next launch window based on forecasted space weather and range availability.”
Blue Origin is the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos. The heavy-lift New Glenn rocket is set to lift off on its second flight, and Blue Origin will attempt to recover the rocket’s reusable first stage booster on a landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Credit: Blue Origin
This doesn’t happen often
It’s unusual, but not unprecedented, for officials to postpone a rocket launch due to space weather. The launch of an Antares cargo rocket heading to the International Space Station was delayed one day in 2014 because of heightened solar activity. SpaceX held up the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket for several hours in 2023 to wait for space radiation levels to abate. This followed the loss of nearly 40 Starlink Internet satellites in 2022 as a geomagnetic storm caused the temporary expansion of Earth’s atmosphere, subjecting the low-altitude satellites to air resistance that pulled them out of orbit.
Atmospheric drag is not the concern with the launch of NASA’s ESCAPADE mission because the satellites are heading into deep space. Instead, there is a risk that high-energy particles coming from the Sun might interfere with electronic systems on the twin probes. The ESCAPADE mission itself is designed to study the interaction between the solar wind and the upper atmosphere of Mars.
Blue Origin did not immediately set a new target launch date for the ESCAPADE mission. Several launches are already scheduled to depart from Cape Canaveral in the next few days, including United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket and a pair of SpaceX Falcon 9s. If those schedules hold, the next opening for New Glenn and ESCAPADE may not come until the weekend.