The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
