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
Sources SpaceNews Advanced Television
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.