The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
