Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
