The aerospace company, founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the eagerly awaited launch of its powerful launch vehicle on the weekend because of adverse meteorological factors at the Florida launch site.
Launch Delay Reasons
Rainfall and a ground system issue led to early setbacks, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window closed, leaving managers to push back the vehicle's upcoming flight.
Rivalry between Bezos' firm and Musk's space company has been intensifying in the past few months.
New Launch Window
To ease traffic in the skies during the government funding gap, the aviation regulator is restricting commercial rocket liftoffs starting the beginning of the week.
Following the cancellation of the launch, Blue Origin said late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a window of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Launch Goals
Upon successful liftoff, the 322-foot New Glenn rocket will transport the US space agency's Escapade twin spacecraft to Mars, 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 its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the company if successful.
Previous Flight
The rocket's first launch in the start of the year 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 landing on a platform in the Atlantic, and ended up destroyed during descent.
Recovery Efforts
In its second effort Blue Origin will try once more to land the booster stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that accomplishment.
Industry Competition
Rival firms of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a commercial space race that recently escalated, as NASA began accepting bids for its planned moon mission, noting that SpaceX was falling behind schedule.
The current administration has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its timeline 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 liftoff.”
“More launches means more ideas in orbit,” a former NASA chief technologist said. “It isn't a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
