An icy vent line may have caused Blue Origin to scrub debut launch of New Glenn

COCOA BEACH, Fla.—With 45 minutes left in a three-hour launch window, Blue Origin scrubbed its first attempt to launch the massive New Glenn rocket early on Monday morning

Throughout the window, which opened at 1 am ET (06:00 UTC), the company continued to reset the countdown clock as launch engineers worked technical issues with the rocket.

Officially, both on its live webcast as well as on social media following the scrub, Blue Origin was vague about the cause of the delayed launch attempt.

"We’re standing down on today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window," the company said. "We’re reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt."

According to sources, the primary problem was likely ice clogging one of the vent lines that carry pressurized gas away from the vehicle. Several attempts were made to melt the ...