Blue Origin, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm 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 the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also serve as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in January was marked as a achievement, as its payload reached space and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the administration pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
