The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
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 amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
