The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal 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.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
