The aerospace company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to postpone the highly anticipated liftoff of its powerful launch vehicle on Sunday because of unfavorable meteorological conditions at Cape Canaveral.
Launch Delay Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused early setbacks, then came cumulus cloud cover as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Rivalry between Blue Origin and Musk's space company has been heating up in the past few months.
Rescheduled Attempt
To relieve traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting private space launches from Monday.
Following the cancellation of the launch, the company announced late Sunday that, working alongside the FAA, it was aiming for a new try as early as midweek within a time slot of afternoon hours Eastern Standard time.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will carry the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, to study the Martian atmospheric past with the long-term goal 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 company if accomplished.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year was marked as a success, as its cargo achieved orbit and successfully performed experiments.
But its main rocket section, which was meant to be reusable, did not stick its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
For this new mission Blue Origin will try once more to recover the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Space Race
Rival firms of billionaires Musk and Bezos are locked in a private sector space competition that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting proposals for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government pile pressure on NASA to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon amid a race with China.
Increased competition between the two firms could “give us more choices with regard to liftoff.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in space,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It can’t be a bad thing to have Blue Origin, even not in the lead.”
