For this uncrewed launch, New Glenn will house the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a payload consisting of a communications array, a power system, and a flight computer. This will let Blue Origin test its Blue Ring spacecraft, which will eventually support missions with refueling, hosting, data relay, and cloud computing capabilities.

Blue Origin could try again to send up its New Glenn rocket for the first time with an overnight launch early Thursday, but the weather forecast could pose problems.

The company, started by the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, reset its countdown clock repeatedly over a period of just over two hours before eventually postponing the test flight to another day.