The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
