Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse weather factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
