The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline 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 greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
