Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to initial delays, then came thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry 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 during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin 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 engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
