The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition 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 said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
