Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
