The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, 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 amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
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
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster 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 has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
