The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged 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 seen the administration pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
