Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve reusable rocket landing, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, 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.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push the agency to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
