The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, had to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend due to adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a technical problem on the ground led to initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving managers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in recent months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the US federal government shutdown, the aviation regulator is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will carry the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, 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 key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was designed as recoverable, did not stick its landing on a platform in the ocean, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
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 proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface amid a race with the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms 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.”
