The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a key test of whether it can achieve 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 achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
