The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the eagerly awaited liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing mission controllers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting Monday.
After scrubbing the launch, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Bezos and Musk are locked in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its planned moon mission, noting that one company was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the administration push NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means greater innovation in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
