Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent 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 achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing 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 SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
