New Glenn pad rebuild on pace for early December, Blue Origin still targeting return to flight this year
From the Space digest for Oct 28, 2026
What happened: Blue Origin expects its rebuilt New Glenn launch pad to be ready by the first half of December to support a return to flight this year (SpaceNews, reported October 28) — an earlier timeline than the previously circulating late-December air-traffic advisory date. A report via Aviation Week adds that Blue Origin has completed the reconstruction of its 430-foot Vehicle Access Tower at the Cape (Advanced Television, October 28).
What's genuinely new: A specific pad-readiness period — the first half of December — replacing the vaguer late-December advisory signal, plus completion of the Vehicle Access Tower rebuild, the ground-infrastructure pieces that have gated New Glenn since the May 2026 pad explosion destroyed the vehicle at LC-36.
Watch: The return-to-flight-by-year-end pledge against a first-half-December pad date, the sequence of tanking and integration tests at the pad, and the mission payload for the comeback flight.
Sources SpaceNews Advanced Television