Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Mission Postponement Causes
Rainfall and a technical problem on the ground caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to reschedule the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, the company said on Sunday evening that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for a new try as soon as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours EST.
Mission Objectives
When it eventually launches, the 98-meter New Glenn rocket will carry NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a major advancement for the firm if accomplished.
Earlier Mission
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in the start of the year was marked as a achievement, as its payload achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during the return phase.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will make another attempt to land the booster stage.
Until now, only SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are locked in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that one company was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has seen the administration pile pressure on the agency to accelerate its timeline to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with the Asian nation.
More rivalry between the two firms could “expand our options with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
