Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue caused initial delays, then came thick clouds as the narrow time frame for launch closed, forcing mission controllers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To relieve airspace congestion during the US federal government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Earlier Mission
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was considered a achievement, as its payload reached space and completed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the ocean, and ended up destroyed during descent.
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 managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, complaining that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to launch astronauts to the lunar surface in competition against the Asian nation.
Increased competition between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist stated. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
