The aerospace company, owned by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of adverse weather conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by cumulus cloud cover as the narrow time frame for launch ended, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Competition between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been heating up in recent months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies amid the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches starting the beginning of the week.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the regulatory body, it was targeting a new try as soon as Wednesday within a window of afternoon hours EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot tall launch vehicle will transport the US space agency's two Mars-bound probes to the Red Planet, to study the planet’s climate history with the long-term goal of human exploration.
The mission will also act as a crucial trial of whether it can achieve booster recovery, which would represent a major advancement for the firm if successful.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload achieved orbit and completed tests.
But its main rocket section, which was designed as recoverable, failed to make its touchdown on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort the launch provider will make another attempt to recover the booster stage.
Thus far, only SpaceX has managed that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
The current administration has seen the government pile pressure on NASA to accelerate its progress to send a crewed mission to the lunar surface in competition against China.
Increased competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“More launches means more ideas in space,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have the competitor, even trailing behind.”
