The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to unfavorable meteorological conditions at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport 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 sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch 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 experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
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 feat.
Space Race
The competing companies of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, 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 involved the government push NASA to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
