Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push the agency to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
