The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
