The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
