The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, 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 government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
