The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test 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 the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
