The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, had to delay the highly anticipated launch of its New Glenn rocket on Sunday due to unfavorable weather factors at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch closed, leaving mission controllers to push back the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been intensifying in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the Federal Aviation Administration is limiting commercial rocket liftoffs from Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, working alongside the regulatory body, it was aiming for another attempt as early as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, in an effort to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would represent a technical breakthrough for the company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed tests.
But its main rocket section, 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 try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
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 planned moon mission, complaining that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline to launch astronauts to the Moon in competition against the Asian nation.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It isn't a negative to have the competitor, even not in the lead.”
