The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition 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 restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from 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 another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
