Blue Origin is expected to launch its 1st New Glenn rocket next week, but when?

Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is on the cusp of launching into the big booster market with the debut of its New Glenn rocket next week, but exactly when the test flight will lift off is unclear.

After years of development —  Jeff Bezos first announced the new rocket in 2016 —  Blue Origin is expected to launch its first New Glenn booster as early as Monday, Jan. 6, from a pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. That's based on an FAA alert to pilots that states the opening of Blue Origin's New Glenn launch window. Liftoff would be at 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT), according to that notice.

But Blue Origin has not publicly announced the specific launch date and time, only that is nearing the first launch of New Glenn after a succesful first stage hot-fire test on Dec. 27 at its pad, Space Launch Complex 36, in Cape Canaveral. The mission will be ambitious, testing a brand-new launch vehicle and attempting to land its first stage at sea.

"Well, all we have left to do is mate our encapsulated payload … and then LAUNCH!" Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp wrote on the social media site X.

"Next Stop launch," Bezos added.

According to the FAA, Blue Origin could launch New Glenn's first flight on Jan. 6 between 1 a.m. EST and 4:45 a.m. EST (0600-0945 GMT), a nearly 4-hour launch window, with backup opportunities daily through Jan. 12.

Blue Origin has named its first New Glenn booster "So You're Telling Me There’s a Chance" (according to Limp) and has already sent its landing drone ship, named Jacklyn after Bezos' mother, out to sea for a planned landing attempt in the Atlantic Ocean. Spaceflight photographer John Kraus shared images of the ship's departure on X.

New Glenn is a heavy-lift vehicle that, like SpaceX's Falcon and Starship rockets, is designed to be reusable, with its first stage returning to Earth for an ocean platform landing. Each New Glenn booster should be capable of up to 25 flights, Blue Origin has said.

The rocket sports a nearly 23-foot (7 meters) payload fairing that includes more than twice the volume of smaller, more commonly used 15-foot (5 m) fairings. The rocket is designed to carry payload of up to 13 metric tons to geostationary orbit and 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit.

"With twice the volume of smaller, five-meter class payload fairings, customers have more flexibility to package their payload in new ways," the company states in an overview.

For its first New Glenn flight, Blue Origin will not launch a payload at all. Instead, the mission, called NG-1, is carrying the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a 45,000-pound (20,411 kilograms) payload simulator version of the company's multi-use Blue Ring spacecraft to carry customer payloads.

"The demonstrator includes a communications array, power systems, and a flight computer affixed to a secondary payload adapter ring. The pathfinder will validate Blue Ring’s communications capabilities from orbit to ground," Blue Origin wrote in a payload overview. "The mission will also test its in-space telemetry, tracking and command hardware, and ground-based radiometric tracking that will be used on the future Blue Ring production space vehicle."

From launch to landing and mission end, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket debut should last about six hours, the company has said. If successful, the mission could count towards one of Blue Origin's certification flights of New Glenn for the U.S. Space Force and National Security Space Launch program.

Blue Origin currently has New Glenn launch agreements in place with NASA (to launch the agency's ESCAPADE Mars probes), Amazon (to fly the company's Kuiper internet satellites), AST SpaceMobile (for space-to-phone communications service) and other commercial and government customers.