The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
