Blue Origin, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition between Blue Origin 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 US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is restricting private space launches starting Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company announced on Sunday evening that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to study the Martian atmospheric past with the eventual hope of sending people there.
Blue Origin’s launch will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform reusable rocket landing, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will try once more to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA opened up proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry 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 isn't a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
