The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
