Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
