The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back 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 ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
