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.

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.

Rough seas caused Blue Origin to hold off a planned early Friday launch attempt with is debut of New Glenn, which is now targeting early Sunday instead. SpaceX, though, managed liftoff later Friday with a booster flying for a record 25th time.