John Glenn was "deeply touched" that Blue Origin named its first orbital-class rocket after him.

Blue Origin's New Glenn on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. (Blue Origin Image) Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space venture says it's

Blue Origin on Monday revealed plans for the inaugural launch of its New Glenn rocket from Florida’s Space Coast.

Like SpaceX, Blue Origin is going to attempt to land the first-stage of its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket. Blue Origin's equivalent of SpaceX's drone ship is a landing platform known as Jacklyn, which was named for founder Jeff Bezos' mother.

Standing 98 meters tall, the New Glenn rocket can transport up to 45 tons to low Earth orbit, more than double SpaceX's Falcon 9 capacity of 23 tons but less than the Falcon Heavy's 63.8 tons.

Blue Origin has named the date for the first launch of its New Glenn rocket – January 10. It wasn't quite the end of 2024 as originally envisioned, but there won't be many rocket fanciers grumbling about a slip of a few more days if it means the launch has a greater chance of success.

Blue Origin got its license, the payload is secure and now it has a target launch window to try and send up its New Glenn rocket for the first time.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin will launch its first orbital rocket "no earlier than Friday", it said, a pivotal moment in the commercial space race currently dominated by Elon Musk's SpaceX.