The aerospace company, founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, was forced to delay the highly anticipated liftoff of its New Glenn rocket on the weekend because of unfavorable meteorological factors at Cape Canaveral.
Mission Postponement Causes
Precipitation and a ground system issue caused initial delays, followed by thick clouds as the 88-minute launch window ended, forcing managers to reschedule the rocket’s planned second mission.
Competition 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 Federal Aviation Administration is limiting private space launches starting Monday.
After scrubbing the mission, Blue Origin announced late Sunday that, in coordination with the FAA, it was targeting another attempt as early as midweek within a time slot of 2.50pm to 4.17pm EST.
Mission Objectives
Upon successful liftoff, the 98-meter tall launch vehicle will transport NASA’s two Mars-bound probes to Mars, in an effort to examine the planet’s climate history with the eventual hope of sending people there.
The mission will also act as a key test of its ability to perform booster recovery, which would prove a technical breakthrough for the firm if accomplished.
Previous Flight
New Glenn’s inaugural flight in January was marked as a success, as its payload reached space and completed tests.
But its first-stage booster, which was meant to be recoverable, failed to make its landing on a ocean-based target in the Atlantic, and instead was lost during descent.
Landing Attempts
In its second effort the launch provider will try once more to land the first stage.
Until now, only Musk’s company SpaceX has achieved that feat.
Industry Competition
The competing companies of tycoons Musk and Bezos are engaged in a private sector space competition that has grown more intense lately, as the space agency opened up bids for its lunar exploration program, noting that SpaceX was lagging behind.
Donald Trump’s second term has involved the government pile pressure on the agency to speed up its progress to send a crewed mission to the Moon in competition against China.
More rivalry between SpaceX and Blue Origin could “give us more choices with regard to launch.”
“Additional missions means more ideas in orbit,” an ex-agency official said. “It can’t be a negative to have Blue Origin, even trailing behind.”
