The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
