The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion amid the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration push the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
