From Blue Origin: “Sea state conditions are still unfavorable for booster landing. We’re shifting our NG-1 launch date by one day to no earlier than January 13. Our three-hour window remains the same, opening Monday at 1 a.m. EST (0600 UTC).”
So that means that both New Glenn and Starship 7 could occur on the same day.
[Update late Sunday evening in CA]
Launch in 20 minutes.
Maybe. They keep moving the clock. But their window will expire in an hour or so, I think.
[Bumped]
First flights of a new rocket often have delays. People tend to be very cautious to increase the chances of success. Like SpaceX, Blue has to consider the weather conditions at the landing site. It wouldn’t surprise me if more delays happen before the flight attempt. I wish them well.
Any rabid rocket launch fans hoping to witness both NG-1 and IFT-7 have just been handed even more of a travel and lodging challenge than they were already facing. The gods of the launch pads can be cruel sometimes.
Weren’t they both originally slated for January 10, though, thus their original schedules already had the conflict that Monday’s schedule presents?
I seem to recall IFT-7 slipping away from the 10th before NG-1 slipped to the 11th, but I may be misremembering. Both launches have slipped more than once in the past few days – and one or both may yet slip some more.
Apparently I jinxed things by writing the above. According to nextspaceflight.com, IFT-7 has now slipped two more days to Jan. 15.
Is it selfish of me to hope for delay until Friday since I won’t be at work?
From Weatherguesser Central: Winds on Wednesday at Boca Chica are up to near 20mph out of the North at 4pm. Not optimal. Better conditions are on Thursday. Best on Saturday.
Ctrot,
Of course it is – and so what? I’ve got a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday that overlaps the currently scheduled launch time for Transporter 12. I hope that mission slips enough that I can watch it. And Friday for IFT-7 works fine for me too.
Yes they were both originally scheduled for the 10th.
I’m surprised that sea state delays don’t occur more often than they do.
SpaceX has lost at least one Falcon-9 overboard due to sea state and almost lost a second. There’s some speculation that IFT-7 is exiting via the Yucatan Strait, rather than the Florida Strait. That’d be better for the pretend Starlink launch.
New Glenn isn’t really competition for SpaceX. It’s in the same range as Falcon Heavy and upper end of 9, but all it can really compete for is NRO and “anything but SpaceX” customers. And, of course, New Glenn has to really work. And soon Starship will render it and everything else (except Long March 9) obsolete.
It has to work, and work REALLY WELL to overcome Falcon-9’s demonstrated success rate and cost per launch.
Plus the Anybody but SpaceX launches better be governments, because demanding to use a lesser product is financial mismanagement.
“Lesser product” is in the eye of the beholder to a considerable degree. But cheaper, now that is readily and objectively verifiable. Deliberately avoiding the lowest-cost alternative for no good reason has already gotten Amazon in trouble with its shareholders – and resulted in three grudging launch orders by Kuiper on F9. You are correct to point out that Amazon doesn’t have the only investor base that would not be amused if SpaceX gets given the air “because SpaceX” or “because Elon.”
Scrub.