The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to adverse meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving mission controllers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
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 achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
