Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
