The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
