Blue Origin, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was considered a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
