Blue Origin will not fly its New Glenn rocket again this year. The company now plans its next launch for January 2027, according to a memo from CEO Dave Limp sent to staff and cited by CNBC and the Financial Times.

The slip follows an explosion earlier this year, and repair work in its aftermath has moved slowly — slow enough to push the heavy-lift vehicle's return off the 2026 calendar entirely.

The delay is a setback for a program that Blue Origin has positioned as its answer to SpaceX's Falcon family. New Glenn is central to the company's ambitions in commercial launch, national security contracts, and its own satellite plans, and every month on the ground is a month competitors spend flying.

For now, the question is whether January holds. Launch timelines in this industry are famously elastic, and a date set via internal memo two months out will face plenty of opportunities to move again before a rocket actually reaches the pad.