Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
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 Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a platform in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons 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 lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
