Technology & Science
Solar storm pushes Blue Origin’s New Glenn Mars launch to Nov 13 after two scrubs
After weather and a G4-level geomagnetic storm scrubbed Nov 9 and 12 attempts, NASA and Blue Origin rescheduled the ESCAPADE mission for a Nov 13, 2025 liftoff, with a renewed bid to land the New Glenn booster.
Focusing Facts
- NOAA logged two merged and one subsequent coronal mass ejections that hit Earth on Nov 11-12, triggering a G4 ‘severe’ geomagnetic storm—the first such watch of Solar Cycle 25.
- The new 88-minute launch window opens 2:57 p.m. EST (19:57 UTC) on 13 Nov 2025 from Cape Canaveral LC-36; booster ‘Never Tell Me the Odds’ will attempt recovery 375 mi downrange on the barge Jacklyn.
- New Glenn’s maiden flight on 16 Jan 2025 reached orbit but its booster crashed after the BE-4 engines failed to reignite.
Context
Space weather has altered launch calendars before—Apollo 12 was struck by lightning in 1969 minutes after liftoff, and a 1989 storm shut down Québec’s grid—but commercial operators have rarely delayed launches pre-emptively. The caution reflects two converging trends: the rising intensity of Solar Cycle 25 as it approaches its predicted 2025 peak, and NASA’s growing reliance on low-cost, privately built hardware such as ESCAPADE (<$100 M) mounted on new-entrant rockets. If New Glenn nails both payload delivery and booster recovery, it would become only the second reusable heavy-lift system after SpaceX’s Falcon 9, tightening a duopoly that may define launch economics for decades. Conversely, another failed landing or further solar-induced delay would underscore how vulnerable even cutting-edge private spacecraft remain to the Sun’s whims—an echo of the 1859 Carrington Event that fried telegraph lines and a reminder that our century-long march toward routine space access is still at the mercy of cycles measured in star-spots.
Perspectives
Left leaning media
Left leaning media — See the postponements as another chapter in the big-money rivalry between Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, highlighting the billionaire competition and prior booster-landing failure rather than the technical causes for the scrub. By framing every schedule slip through the lens of super-rich competition they risk downplaying legitimate engineering or safety constraints that don’t fit the ‘billionaire ego race’ narrative.
Specialist space-industry press
Specialist space-industry press — Attribute the latest scrub chiefly to an unusually strong series of coronal mass ejections and drill into the detailed technical risks to spacecraft electronics, treating the delay as prudent mission assurance rather than corporate stumble. Focus on physics and launch cadence can underplay schedule pressure or cost overruns because these outlets depend on industry access and an audience of space enthusiasts inclined to give companies the benefit of the doubt.
Local Florida news outlets
Local Florida news outlets — Cast the launch as a marquee community event and tourist draw, stressing weather forecasts, beach-side viewing tips and booster-landing spectacle while assuring readers another attempt is imminent. Economic reliance on the Space Coast launch boom nudges coverage toward boosterism—celebratory tone and minimal scrutiny of technical setbacks that could dampen excitement or visitor numbers.