The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Reasons
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, then came cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, forcing managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease airspace congestion amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the mission, the company said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s Escapade twin spacecraft to the Red Planet, to examine the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
Blue Origin’s launch will also serve as a key test of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was considered a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as NASA opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government push NASA to speed up its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
