The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, Blue Origin said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes 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 serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its cargo achieved orbit and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to recover the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Bezos and Musk are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, complaining that one company was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
