Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, 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 its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
