The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket 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.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as reusable, 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 try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
