The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday because of unfavorable weather conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its timeline 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 liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in space,” an ex-agency official stated. “It isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
