Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial 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 achievement, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government 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 “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
