The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
