The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
