Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space 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
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
