The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster 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 has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
